Solution to rice mess beyond the blame game
The rice supply and price controversy has so many factors that we must look deeper into, beyond the blame game and finger-pointing that we are now seeing between the National Food Authority (NFA) and the NFA Council.
Start with this stark reality: the insufficient supply of NFA rice, the most affordable for ordinary Filipinos, has caused the prices of the grain to rise.
With the scant supply of NFA rice, speculators have stepped into the market to do what they do best — speculate — consequently increasing the price of commercial rice. This has prompted the traders to buy whatever available rice stock comes out from the farms. As a result, the rice market has become unhinged.
Why did the long established system of the government for stabilizing rice supply and prices fail this time?
At Tuesday’s hearing in the House of Representatives on the rice price-supply mess, officials of the NFA and the NFA Council swapped charges over who was to blame.
The NFA pointed a finger at the Council for not approving early enough its request to import rice amid the scarcity of supply, aggravating the country’s supply problem. It said that they made the request in October 2017, but the Council approved the request only in May this year.
“This is not our fault,” NFA Administrator Tomas Escarez told the committee chaired by Quirino Rep. Dakila Cua.
But NFA Council member Trade Undersecretary Ruth Castelo rejected Escarez’s statement and said the NFA’s failure to submit its inventory was the cause of the delay.
Castelo pointed out the NFA’s basic mandate: “The NFA is just there to stabilize the rice prices when there is not enough rice in the market.” But she did not acknowledge that the delay in the council’s action has also contributed to the problem, disabling the NFA from doing its job of stabilizing the rice supply and prices.
The exchange of explanations is unsatisfactory and frustrating to the public. When rice price-supply is the issue, what is needed is a prompt and effective course of action, less talk.
In Malacañang, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque Jr. rightly told the NFA and the NFA Council to stop blaming each other for the rice crisis.
Moreover, Roque also made a disclosure that the Commission on Audit has found that the NFA used its fund intended for rice importation to pay off maturing debts.
All that finger-pointing makes it clear that both agencies have failed to perform their mandates or tasks. The NFA Council’s duty is policymaking; it acts on or approves the requests of the NFA. The NFA implements the policy.
The NFA Council has a point in saying that the NFA failed to submit its rice inventory, which resulted in the delay of the approval by the council of the new importation.
Given that, the issue should be clear: we cannot just import more rice that costs billions of people’s money without knowing first the current NFA inventory. The NFA management must show the council its rice inventory for the policy-making body to determine if importing rice is truly justified.
This is essentially a bureaucratic snafu that should not happen, especially because the tasks of the NFA and the NFA Council are clearly complementary, not competitive.
Beyond this issue, we must also turn our attention to the government’s plan to impose tariffs on rice imports, and the likely ramifications of a tariffication law.
If rice tariffication finally becomes law, we could be looking at the possible abolition of the NFA and the NFA Council, instead of witnessing this spectacle of finger-pointing between them.
The proposed measure is intended to replace the current quantitative restrictions on rice imports with a tariff system. The President himself certified the legislation as urgent during his State of the Nation Address in July. This bill must be enacted into law and put into effect soon.
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