|
IN the
face of undue price increase due to global price shocks
and the recent typhoon, the National Food Authority (NFA)
has sacked three key provincial officials for failing to
speed up adequate rice supply in their respective areas.
NFA
deputy administrator Ludovico Jarina said the relieved
officers were managers Edmund Primicias of Banaue,
Ifugao; Julius Lawama of Dipolog City; and Pablito
Gemarino of Kalibo, Aklan.
Jarina
said if the officials were able to hasten the arrival of
adequate supply of NFA rice sold at P18.25, P25, and P35
a kilo, retail prices of well-milled and premium
commercial varieties would not have increased.
In
some areas in the Philippines, commercial rice prices
have reached around P47 per kilo for well-milled rice to
as much as P58 per kilo for fancy rice.
The
removal of the three officials was also in accordance
with Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap’s directive to NFA
Administrator Jessup Navarro to relieve at once other
provincial executives who fail to pump enough stocks
into the markets, especially in Western Visayas and the
other regions severely hit by Typhoon Frank.
Last
weekend Yap also directed Department of Agriculture (DA)
and NFA regional officials to work with their
counterparts in the Department of Trade and Industry
and the National Bureau of Investigation along with
local executives in monitoring food prices.
Yap
also said that unscrupulous retailers in Panay Island
who have unduly jacked up the cost of rice in the
provinces worst hit by the typhoon must also be
apprehended.
“Such
price movements are unwarranted and certainly smack of
gouging, given the adequate supply of rice in the hands
of both the NFA and commercial traders across the island
and that the inventories now held—and sold—by grains
businessmen are the same stocks they had acquired during
the summer harvest season that ended just before the
onslaught of Typhoon Frank,” Yap explained.
Meanwhile, the NFA has increased its injection of rice
in Panay Island to as much as 40 percent of the local
supply in its four provinces that were hit the hardest
by Typhoon Frank.
The DA
and other government agencies will provide relief to the
affected farmers, fisherfolk and consumers in the
region.
Yap
earlier assured the public of an adequate food supply in
Western Visayas, saying that as ordered by President
Aroyo, the NFA has inventories of 683,690 bags or 34,185
metric tons in the island.
This
supply, Yap said, would be enough to further stabilize
inventories and prices of the staple food a week after
the onslaught of the latest natural disaster. |
