Rice shortage looms in Cebu, Central Visayas

CEBU — Cebu may run short of rice in the next 36 days due to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s suspension of the issuance of authority to import rice.

The regional office of the National Food Authority said Central Visayas is also expected to suffer from a rice shortage in the next 21 days.

NFA-Region 7 information officer Ariel Bacatan said the calculation is based on a recent inventory that excluded rice being supplied by private wholesalers and traders.

Bacatan said the region may have to depend on rice coming from Iloilo and Mindanao to cover the deficit.

Based on the inventory, there are only 300,000 bags of rice left in NFA warehouses, including more than 142,000 bags of Vietnam rice which the Bureau of Customs seized last December.

Teresa Alegado, president of the Grains Retailers Confederation, said the government must accept the fact that importation is the answer to the country’s rice insufficiency problem.

"The country doesn’t have sufficient supply of the commodity anymore," Alegado said.

The NFA, at present, is disposing of an average of 19,000 bags of rice daily. Some 8,520 bags are consumed in Cebu, while 7,030 and 3,913 bags are brought to Bohol and Negros Oriental, respectively. Siquijor, on the other hand, is provided with 126 bags daily.

Bacatan said the daily rate of rice releases depends on the rate of increase of migrants.

He said rice importations are usually scheduled during the lean months, starting July.

Bacatan said Cebu is considered a critical area in terms of rice supply because it is not a rice-producing province.

The Department of Agriculture is aiming to make the Philippines self-sufficient in rice production by 2003.

In a related development, Cebu Customs district collector Rolando Yebes denied news reports quoting him as saying that the 20,000 bags of Vietnam rice seized from M/V Ninh Dinh are missing.

Yebes said he was not interviewed on the issue and that it is the NFA which holds the inventory of the shipment.

NFA regional director Ludovico Jarina, in a statement, said the rice shipment is still intact although more than a thousand bags were rejected because they were no longer fit for consumption. — Freeman News Service