By Manny Piñol
Before leaving for a quick trip to Papua New Guinea last week, I wrote President Rody Duterte officially to ask for his guidance on how to exempt from the tedious and stringent bidding process the procurement of high yielding rice seeds, including inbred and hybrid seeds.
The move was aimed at correcting a fundamental flaw in the rice seeds procurement system which has resulted in the waste of government funds and low productivity.
I told President Duterte that since rice seeds are site specific, meaning rice seeds which may grow well and yield high in the Cagayan Valley Region may not perform as well in Panay Island, the practice of buying seeds through the usual “Lowest Bidder” system will not work well.
In the past, Central Luzon farmers who have expressed preference for a certain variety of hybrid seeds refused to accept the hybrid seeds from a company which won the bidding because it was the lowest bidder.
This resulted in the wastage of government funds and the inability of the farmers to use hybrid seeds to increase their production.
The long and tedious government procurement process has also taken its toll on the rice seeds procurement program because by the time the seeds are delivered to the farmers, they have either finished planting or the seeds have become stale with very low germination rate.
In the proposal I submitted to the President, farmers should be allowed to indicate the hybrid rice seeds that they prefer for their area.
The President responded by directing the Department of Agriculture to let the farmers indicate their preference in a manifesto so that the agency will have the basis in skirting the usual procurement process.
Following the guidance from the President, Director Roy Abaya of DA Region 3 which covers Central Luzon, asked the farmers in his area to come up with a manifesto declaring their chosen hybrid rice seeds.
Yesterday, Director Abaya reported that the Regional Development Council (RDC) passed a resolution approving the proposal of DA Region 3 to exempt the procurement of rice seeds from the “Lowest Bidder” scheme.
Other Regional Offices are also advised to follow the actions taken by Region 3 to justify the exemption of the rice seeds procurement from the usual bidding process.
(Photos of rice seeds farm downloaded from public websites while the last photo shows the image of the letter I sent to Pres. Duterte last week.)
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