Makabayan bloc seeks House probe into rice scarcity
MANILA, Philippines — Lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc of the House are seeking a congressional investigation into the country's rice supply problem.
The lawmakers filed House Resolution 2120 Thursday, directing the House Committee on Agriculture and Food to conduct an inquiry into the scarcity of the Filipino staple.
“The nation has been experiencing severe rice crisis devastating the poor with the unavailability or scarcity of P27 and P32 per kilo National Food Authority rice in almost all markets nationwide and the unconscionable hikes in the prices of commercial rice which even reached P60 to 70 per kilogram in places like Zamboanga City,” the Makabayan lawmakers said.
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They also want the House panel to probe NFA’s reported diversion of the P5.1-billion fund it received from the national government in 2017 intended for the stabilization of the supply and prices of rice and corn.
Early this month, the Commission on Audit called out the agency for using the fund allocated for NFA’s Food Security Program in paying its maturing debts.
The state auditors said the diversion of fund had severely affected NFA’s Food Security Program, noting the shortfalls in the amount of palay procured from farmers as well as the subsidized NFA rice distributed in the market.
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The members of Makabayan bloc, moreover, questioned the Duterte administrations policy of seemingly prioritizing rice importation.
“The Duterte administration has adopted a flawed concept of food security that limited itself to 'availability, accessibility and utilization' of rice, thus, its total reliance [on] importation, at the expense of Filipino farmers, to fill up the gap between the supply and consumption,” they said.
The Makabayan solons also sought probes into the importation of weevil-infested rice and the rice crisis in Zamboanga City.
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