Increase in rice prices feared

A leader of a group representing overseas Filipino workers expressed apprehension yesterday over a looming increase in the prices of rice due to the government’s reported refusal to allow the arrival of imported rice starting this month up to February next year.

The OFWs, represented by Noel Josue, president of the Kaibigan ng OCWs Inc., urged National Food Authority Administrator Arthur Yap and Angelito Sarmiento of the NFA Council to consider the plight of the overseas workers’ families, who would bear the brunt of such an increase in the prices of rice.

Josue said there is a need to immediately take appropriate actions on the matter to address a possible rice shortfall next year if the government rejects the extension of the Farmers as Importers Program (FIP) and Farmers as Distributors Program (FDP), which ended last August.