A strange story!

STOPPAGE OF RICE SMUGGLING

RESULTS IN ZAMBO ‘RICE CRISIS’

By Manny Piñol

This is a strange story of a successful government campaign against perennial rice smuggling activities in the Southern Philippines which resulted in a rice crisis in the island provinces of Tawitawi, Sulu and Basilan and the City of Zamboanga.

Yesterday, just as the rains were hammering Metro Manila and work in the Department of Agriculture was suspended, I received a call from a local radio station in Zamboanga City, RMN, reporting that people were panicking because there was hardly any rice left in the market and the prices have shot up to about P70 per kilo.

After getting a clearance from Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to attend to the “crisis,” I called up National Food Authority (NFA) Administrator Jason Aquino and asked him to fly with me to Zamboanga City using a small plane owned by Presidential friend Archie Po.

(I had to ask clearance from Malacañang to address a problem which concerns NFA because officially the agency is not under the DA.)

In Zamboanga City, I discovered that the delay in the importation of the NFA rice has resulted in the absence of government subsidised rice in the market for five months.

During the period and even before that, the city, just like the three island provinces, relied on smuggled rice from either Vietnam or Thailand brought in through the backdoor via Sandakan in Sabah, Malaysia.

The presence of smuggled rice in the markets of these areas has long been accepted and tolerated by the local authorities.

In fact, at the height of the smuggling activities, nobody really cared about the NFA rice or even the local commercial rice.

The abundant supply of smuggled rice also gave the local officials a false sense of security that they will always have rice for their people thus many of them did not really care to have their own rice production programs.

The smuggling even continued during the early days of the administration of President Rody Duterte until his private visit to Malaysia recently to watch the fight between the fighting Senator Manny Pacquiao and Argentinian Lucas Mathyse obviously gave him the chance to discuss with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad the terrorism and smuggling issues at the border.

A few weeks ago, Malaysia closed the borders and effectively rice smuggling stopped.

Caught off-guard, rice traders suddenly scrambled to source rice from other areas but since it was the off-harvest season, there was hardly any rice available for sale.

In just a few weeks, prices of rice went up from about P38 per kilo as high as P70 per kilo.

The NFA had to airlift rice supplies to Jolo and ship more to Tawitawi and Basilan to prevent a rice crisis.

This story may sound funny but there are lessons to be learned here.

1. We simply cannot rely on imported rice because as shown in the ZAMBASULTA rice crisis, the moment the tap runs dry we would have no farms to source our rice from.

In response to the suggestion of our economic managers that we just buy imported rice rather than spend too much for our rice program, I have asked: What happens if our sources of imported rice stops selling to us and we no longer have rice farmers tilling the fields?

2. Local Government Units must have their own Food Security Programs which would take into consideration their population, the food consumption volume and the sources of food.

If they are a net importer of rice simply because they have no areas to grow it, then they must identify the areas where they could source it.

3. LGU executives must continuously monitor the food supply and prices in their markets so that they would have a first-hand information.

It pays to visit the public market once in a while and get the feel of the pulse of the people.

As for the DA, we will now start penetrating these island provinces and convince the local executives to grow their own rice, especially for Sulu and Tawitawi which are the most difficult to reach areas of the South because of geographical and security issues.

#LetsGrowOurOwn!

#Changeishere!

(Photos taken by Diane Faith Garcia in the Zamboanga City public market yesterday shows people lining up for the NFA rice which just arrived from Thailand and stalls where commercial rice was sold at P50 to P55 per kilo.)