THE Philippine government would likely declare a food security emergency within two days to enable the local rice agency to release buffer stocks amid stubbornly high rice prices, a Trade official told a House of Representatives committee on Tuesday.
The National Price Coordinating Council (NPCC) is close to finalizing a resolution that would allow the Agriculture secretary to declare the emergency, Trade Assistant Secretary Agaton Teodoro O. Uvero told congressmen.
Mr. Uvero said they finalized on Monday a version of the rice order that “everyone’s fine with.” “We need to follow the bureaucracy involved,” he said in Filipino.
When asked whether the government could release the order within the next 48 hours, Mr. Uvero said “we can probably do it.”
Republic Act (RA) No. 12708, the Agricultural Tariffication Act, grants the Agriculture secretary authority to declare a food security emergency, in cases of rice supply shortages or extraordinary price spikes.
“If in case the food security emergency is declared, then we can start unloading our stocks, whether they are regular or aging stocks,” National Food Authority (NFA) Administrator Larry R. Lacson told lawmakers in Filipino.
He said the rice agency currently has more than 760,000 bags of rice ready to be sold once the Department of Agriculture declares a food emergency.
The NFA would sell aging rice stocks at P29 per kilo, while it would barter regular stocks at P38 per kilo. “There are around 300,000 bags of aging stocks and 400,000 plus, almost 500,000 bags, of regular stocks,” said Mr. Lacson.
Also on Tuesday, Mr. Lacson said the current funding provided to NFA is not enough to cover the 15-day rice buffer stocking requirement under RA No. 12708. The law increased the rice agency’s minimum rice reserve level to 15 days’ worth of demand from the previous nine days.
“We would need P14.2 billion just to cover nine days,” said Mr. Lacson.
The NFA was provided with only P9 billion for buffer stocking this year, which could cover rice needs of Filipinos for six days, Ms. Quimbo pointed out. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio
