DAVAO CITY—The government began talking Monday with rice millers and traders, and inspecting warehouses here to ascertain reports that speculation jacked up prices of rice.

This was part of an interagency investigation into the sudden surge of rice prices last week that baffled both consumers and government officials who have been assured that rice buffer stocks were already adequate to cover the lean months up to September this year.

The National Food Authority (NFA) has also released the upgraded variety of rice from Thailand on Tuesday to pull down the sharp uptick in prices, which shot up by P4 from Monday’s price level of P45 to P48 per kilo of the low-end tonner variety. By Tuesday, the price hovered at between P48 and P52 in the city.

Undersecretary Merle Cruz of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said that the DTI and the NFA have studied the reports pointing out the causes of the price surge in the Filipinos’ main staple food.

NFA is planning to increase rice distribution and introduce premium rice variety in key cities of Mindanao to help stabilize the price of the staple food in the wake of the reported spiraling price of commercial rice in the area.

NFA administrator Jessup Navarro said the agency will implement its rice-marketing strategies that were proven effective in addressing the rice crisis in Metro Manila in Southern Philippines, particularly in Davao, General Santos and Cagayan de Oro. 

The premium rice, packed in 1-kg bag, and priced at P25/kg will be available in the market and sold directly to consumers. Meanwhile, the P18.25/kg regular-milled rice will still be available through the NFA rolling stores and Tindahan Natin outlets.

The introduction of high-quality but low-priced premium rice is expected to narrow the wide price difference between commercial rice being sold by the private traders and the low-priced NFA-subsidized rice, Navarro said.

He cited that a recent report coming from Southern Mindanao showed the recorded average price of well- milled rice is P34.17/kg.

“The reported P50/kg to P51/kg rice in Mindanao are fancy varieties like the milagrosa and upland rice,” Navarro clarified.

Unlike the ordinary International Rice Research Institute and PSB varieties, fancy rice are being harvested only once a year and, therefore, commands a higher price, Navarro explained.

The NFA is continuously keeping a tight watch of the rice market and closely coordinating with the National Bureau of Investigation to preempt and stop the illegal activities of unscrupulous rice traders.

Navarro personally talked with millers in the Davao Region but left the city shortly after. It was not certain if Navarro had validated previous reports that the millers in Compostela Valley, a rice-producing province in the region, deliberately stopped milling palay purportedly to jack up prices.

 NFA Davao manager Lorenzo Camayang said the meeting with the millers Tuesday morning included an inquiry into such report but that he was not privy to the discussions, however. Camayang attended an interagency meeting at the DTI office, which also met the press Tuesday morning.

DTI Assistant Regional Director Marizon Loreto said that the Local Price Coordinating Council went around the warehouses on Monday “primarily to check on possible hoarding by traders but we found out that there were really not enough stocks.”

“They told us that they can only have at most 50 bags of palay to mill and then they would be immediately dispatched to the major markets and grains outlets in the city,” Loreto said.

Cruz said that the DTI has also requested the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to monitor all shipments of rice from Mindanao “going out, to determine where the rice from Mindanao have really gone.”

“If there are no shipments out of Mindanao, then the rice stocks are only here somewhere in Mindanao,” she said.

The request was made following a disclosure on Friday of a former official of a Davao City grains retailers association that the traditional rice-producing provinces of North Cotabato and Maguindanao have been buying their supply from this city.

The Davao Region is traditionally a net rice-deficit region, and had usually accessed the surplus rice from the Cotabato provinces, the historically acknowledged rice bowl of the Philippines.

Fred Pontillo, a member of the Local Price Coordinating Council, has confirmed in Tuesday’s interagency meeting at the DTI office here that, indeed, grains traders in the Cotabato provinces have been sending their palay for milling here and sending back to their municipalities “because the price is higher, hence, these would command a higher price back in their municipalities.”

Loreto said that the various activities of the member-agencies in the council would be consolidated in a single report to President Arroyo, possibly within the week. She said that the provincial reports would be expected to be handed in within the week.

Camayang and Cruz also parried off suggestions from news reporters to discipline erring millers and traders by canceling their permits and licenses, for instance, to control the surge in prices, which have breached the P50/kg mark, for many areas in the Davao Region already.

Only Bansalan town, a traditional rice granary of the region and supplying most of the needs of the 1.3 million residents of this city, was the first to suffer that level of price of rice over the weekend.

Some parts of Davao del Norte, including its capital Tagum City, also reached the P50 mark by Monday, said Romulo Falcon, assistant regional director of the Department of Agriculture here.

By Tuesday  Davao City store outlets already displayed prices of the tonner ranging from P48 for the third-class 7-tonner to P52 for the premium BanayBanay rice, produced in the Davao Oriental town bearing its name.

“That [imposing disciplinary measures] was possible then, when rice was then regulated until 1986. But after that, what is going on is what we may call as part of business,” Camayang said.

Cruz said that “we have to find a more acceptable, not the distorted actions, and we are here to find out what caused the problem to enable us to tell the public what the government is doing and what it intends to do.”

“It would be up to the President then to act on the suggestions that we might recommend,” she said. (With Jonathan Mayuga)

DAVAO CITY—The government began talking Monday with rice millers and traders, and inspecting warehouses here to ascertain reports that speculation jacked up prices of rice.

DAVAO CITY—Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Peter Favila  has appealed to the rich to allow the residents in depressed communities in Mindanao have the priority in the long queues for the cheaper Vietnam rice sold at National Food Authority retail outlets.

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