TAWITAWI IN A QUANDARY:
LOCAL OR SMUGGLED RICE?
Bongao, Tawitawi (Late Post) – For a province which has long been reputed to be the drop-off area for rice smuggled in from Malaysia, Tawitawi never had any problem with its rice supply which was sold for as low as P34 per kilo,
When the smuggling route was closed a month ago, however, Tawitawi residents suddenly found themselves lining up for rice sold as high as P100 per kilo right after the Eid’l Fitr.
The end of smuggling, which came after the visit of President Rody Duterte to Malaysia last month where he had a private meeting with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, could be hailed as a success in the government’s campaign against illegal activities but it resulted in a crisis as Tawitawi, Sulu, Basilan and Zamboanga City, also known as ZAMBASULTA, suddenly ran out of rice supply.
Last week, Zamboanga City and Isabela City in Basilan Island declared a State of Calamity citing the high prices of rice in the area.
Although the rice crisis was declared to have ended the other day in Zamboanga City with the arrival of new rice stocks from farmers cooperatives supported by the Department of Agriculture in Mindanao and the National Food Authority, Basilan, Sulu and Tawitawi are still gripped with very limited supply of rice.
I flew to Bongao yesterday accompanied by Asst. Secretary Andrew Villacorta, who handles the National Rice Program, and PhilRice Executive Director Dr. Sailila Abdulla to assess the rice situation in the province.
The situation is precarious.
Even with the arrival of the first 10,000 bags of NFA rice and the expected additional shipment of another 20,000 bags, Tawitawi officials are unsure of where to get additional rice supplies.
With a population of about 600,000 mainly dependent on smuggled rice, Tawitawi alone needs about 60,000 metric tons of rice every year.
Tawitawi Governor Rashid Matba yesterday offered a 10,000 hectare area which could be developed into a corporate rice farm by the DA but it would take sometime before it start producing.
Even with that area, Tawitawi could only produce 30,000 metric tons of rice or half of what it needs.
Yesterday, I submitted a memorandum to President Rody Duterte which was coursed through Special Asst. to the President Bong Go, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez and Executive Sec. Bingbong Medialdea recommending the following measures:
1. Allow a special importation of 132,000 metric tons of rice by the private sector for the ZAMBASULTA region, a recommendation which is expected to be tackled by the NFA Council on Tuesday;
2. Consider the establishment of a Rice Trading Center where all supplies coming from the outside would be unloaded, charged with minimal tariffs and distributed only in the ZAMBASULTA area.
My proposal is that the volume of rice allowed to enter through the Rice Trading Center should not be more than half of the total requirements of the region so that rice farmers in the mainland would not be affected.
3. Each of the LGUs in the ZAMBASULTA Region should be required to establish a rice production project with an initial 1,000 hectares as pilot area.
Tawitawi has already committed 10,000 hectares while the three others have committed 1,000 hectares each.
Local officials have all endorsed my proposals but aside from Proposal No. 3 which I could implement at my level, all the others will have to referred to other agencies for their approval.
There is not much time, however, because Tawitawi’s rice supply is only good for 15 days while Sulu only has about 10 days.
The only other option left to the local officials is to allow the resumption of rice smuggling operations in the area.
But that has also become problematic because with the intensified campaign against smuggling by President Duterte, the “tara” of corrupt government officials in the area and other agencies has also increased to P500 per 25-kilo bag.
(I learned that the only agencies of government that do not take bribes from the smuggling operations are the Marines and the Armed Forces.)
With a “tara” of P500 per bag, the landed cost of the smuggled rice would come to about P44 per kilo, that is just slightly lower than the rice produced by the farmers from the mainland of Mindanao.
This is a predicament that could only be addressed if we in government would get our acts together and act fast.
(Photos of the NFA rice unloading and distribution in Bongao, Tawitawi were taken yesterday by Diane Faith Garcia, OSEC; Alan Jay Jacalan and Lito Degorio, DA-AFID.)
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