Solution to rice mess beyond the blame game

THE rice supply and price controversy has so many factors that we must look deeper into, beyond the blame game National Food Authority (NFA) and the NFA Council.

NFA rice, the most affordable for ordinary Filipinos, has caused the prices of the grain to rise.

With the scant supply of NFA rice, speculators have stepped into the market to do what they do best — speculate — consequently increasing the price of commercial rice. This has prompted the traders to buy whatever available rice stock comes out from the farms. As a result, the rice market has become unhinged.

Why did the long established system of the government for stabilizing rice supply and prices fail this time?

At Tuesday’s hearing in the House of Representatives on Council swapped charges over who was to blame.

- ing early enough its request to import rice amid the scarcity of supply, aggravating the country’s supply problem. It said that they made the request in October 2017, but the Council approved the request only in May this year.

“This is not our fault,” NFA Administrator Tomas Escarez told the committee chaired by Quirino Rep. Dakila Cua.

But NFA Council member Trade Undersecretary Ruth Castelo rejected Escarez’s statement and said the NFA’s failure to submit its inventory was the cause of the delay.

Castelo pointed out the NFA’s basic mandate: “The NFA is just there to stabilize the rice prices when there is not enough rice in the market.” But she did not acknowledge that the delay in the council’s action has also contributed to the problem, disabling the NFA from doing its job of stabilizing the rice supply and prices.

The exchange of explanations is unsatisfactory and frustrating to the public. When rice price-supply is the issue, what is needed is a prompt and effective course of action, less talk.

In Malacañang, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque Jr. rightly told the NFA and the NFA Council to stop blaming each other for the rice crisis.

Moreover, Roque also made a disclosure that the Commission on Audit has found that the NFA used its fund intended for rice importation to pay off maturing debts.

have failed to perform their mandates or tasks. The NFA Council’s duty is policymaking; it acts on or approves the requests of the NFA. The NFA implements the policy.

The NFA Council has a point in saying that the NFA failed to submit its rice inventory, which resulted in the delay of the approval by the council of the new importation.

Given that, the issue should be clear: we cannot just import more rice that costs billions of people’s money without know must show the council its rice inventory for the policy-making

This is essentially a bureaucratic snafu that should not happen, especially because the tasks of the NFA and the NFA Council are clearly complementary, not competitive.

Beyond this issue, we must also turn our attention to the government’s plan to impose tariffs on rice imports, and

looking at the possible abolition of the NFA and the NFA pointing between them.

The proposed measure is intended to replace the current quantitative restrictions on rice imports with a tariff urgent during his State of the Nation Address in July. This bill must be enacted into law and put into effect soon.