Maraming salamat po, Gloria.
By ABS-CBN
Various activist groups on Friday urged the National Food Authority to file court charges against former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and former Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap for authorizing the over importation of rice from neighboring countries.
In a statement, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), Bantay Bigas and the Katipunan ng mga Samahang Magbubukid ng Timog Katagalugan (Kasama-TK) said Arroyo and Yap are equally liable for allowing the over importation of rice in 2004 and 2007, which cost Filipino taxpayers some P171.6 billion.
In 2004, the Philippine government imported 900,000 metric tons of rice despite lacking only 117,000 metric tons of the food staple. In 2007, the agriculture department and NFA pursued the importation of 1.827 million metric tons of rice despite having a lack of only 589,000 metric tons.
Bantay Bigas held a picket outside the NFA office in Visayas Avenue and blamed the rice trade liberalization policy for the so-called "flooding" of imported rice in the country.
In his first State of the Nation Address, President Benigno Aquino III alleged that rice imports in recent years were much more than what the country actually needed.
He also blamed excessive importation of the staple for the NFA's debts, which he said ballooned to P171 billion in 2009 from only P28 billion in 2003.
NFA chief Lito Banayo earlier said that inventory of NFA warehouses nationwide yielded rice stocks that could feed the country up to the end of the year. He said in some warehouses, rice stocks have only been rotting.
The rice agency is now looking at selling old stocks at a bargain to help trim its debts and reduce its reliance on government subsidies.
KMP spokesman Antonio Flores said the NFA should impose a 6-year moratorium on the importation of rice and instead pursue measures that would increase domestic rice production, stop land use conversions of rice lands and assure irrigation for more than 3 million hectares of lands devoted to rice production.
Instead of reducing rice lands, he said the government should promote and increase rice lands devoted to rice and food production.
For her part, Soriano of Bantay Bigas urged the government to increase the buying capacity of NFA to 25% of the total domestic produced palay by local rice farmers to stabilize rice prices and ensure good dividends for rice farmers.
Soriano said that while NFA is mandated by law to buy 10% of locally produced palay from farmers, the authority only managed to buy 1% while the rest of the NFA funds are allocated for unbridled importation of rice.
She said the NFA should increase not only its buying capacity, but also the price of palay per kilo. At present, Bantay Bigas wants the NFA to procure palay at P 15 per kilo, instead of spending taxpayers money to rice importation at the expense of Filipino farmers and consumers.
Bantay Bigas said rotten rice should not be distributed to poor Filipinos, saying the poor do not deserved rotten and unsafe rice for consumption.
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