Senate Trade and Commerce Committee Chairperson Sen. Koko Pimentel III on Tuesday urged retiring Army Chief and incoming National Food Authority (NFA) Administrator Lt. Gen. Rolando Bautista to work closely with the government’s economic managers to stabilize rice prices and address problems with supplies of affordable NFA rice.
Pimentel said the long queues for NFA rice in the country’s markets were “obvious signs that the prices of commercial rice have reached levels beyond the reach of the ordinary consumer.”
“It has become painfully clear that the the surging rice prices and scarcity in NFA rice can be traced to problems between the NFA management and the NFA Council and disagreements over how much rice to import and when.”
According to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the average retail price of regular milled rice rose to P43.86 per kilo during the last week of August, while well-milled rice hit P47.12 per kilo.
“These are just the national averages. Rice prices are even higher in Mindanao, where you will be hard-pressed to find commercial rice lower than P48 per kilo,” lamented the Cagayan De Oro-born legislator.
The prices of regular milled and well milled rice, said Pimentel, were 15.2 percent and 11.6 percent higher, respectively, compared to prices during the same period last year.
“It has become painfully clear that the the surging rice prices and scarcity in NFA rice can be traced to problems between the NFA management and the NFA Council and disagreements over how much rice to import and when,” said Pimentel.
“It is now incumbent upon the new NFA Administrator to ensure that he does not repeat the mistakes of his predecessor. He should work with our economic managers so they work in sync,” he added.
“These are just the national averages. Rice prices are even higher in Mindanao, where you will be hard-pressed to find commercial rice lower than P48 per kilo.”
Pimentel said that Bautista should also ensure that delays are not encountered in the distribution of imported rice that is expected to arrive in November.
“We have 250,000 metric tons of rice coming in, and the new NFA chief should have a plan in place to properly distribute these rice stocks so they do not share the same fate of previously imported rice stocks that took so long to unload that they were infested with weevils.”