As I prepare to take on my new assignment from President Rody Duterte, I would like to leave behind a clean slate and tell the real story behind some of the most controversial issues which surfaced in the agriculture sector from mid-2016 to mid-2019.
Among these controversies were the much-talked about “rice crisis” in 2018, the controversial Rice Tariffication Law and the rock-bottom drop of Copra prices and other problems affecting the coconut industry.
In this post, I will write about the so-called “Rice Crisis” of 2018 which started as early as February when the National Food Authority (NFA) announced that it was running out of stocks of the imported rice it was selling in the market at P27 per kilo, obviously catering to the poor and at the same time stabilising the price of commercial rice in the market.
I have to write about this because there are some reports blaming me for the so-called “rice crisis.”
Here are some important facts:
– From July 2016 to September 2018, the NFA was under the Office of the Cabinet Secretary and the Department of Agriculture was not even a member of the NFA Council, the governing body which sets the policies and decides on whether to import rice or not. It was only transferred to the DA mid-September 2018.
– As early as October of 2017, then NFA Administrator Jason Aquino already asked the NFA Council to allow the agency to import rice because it was running low on its buffer stocks. This was, however, opposed by majority of the members of the Council. There are minutes of the Council meeting available for pubic review to prove who opposed the importation..
– In 2017, the Philippine rice industry recorded its highest harvest in history with 19.28-million metric tons, topping by almost 2-million metric tons the last harvest of the previous administration. Last year, 2018, even with the devastation caused by 22 typhoons, the rice industry still posted a harvest of 19.06-million metric tons. Even with that record harvest, the Philippines was still short of about 7% of its total rice requirements and that during the lean months from July to September, there was really a need to inject the market with imported rice.
– In April of 2018, President Duterte had to step in and order the NFA Council to allow the NFA to import. By then, however, the rice traders already knew that with the absence of the NFA Rice in the market, they were free to manipulate the prices of commercial rice. Prices of commercial rice started to go up as early as March until September of 2018.
– In July, reports of increasing rice prices came out and by August, Zamboanga City declared a “State of Calamity” as rice prices soared to as high as P70 to P80 per kilo. When I heard of these reports, I called up Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea and volunteered to help diffuse the Zamboanga City Rice Crisis. I told him that while the NFA Rice Supply issue does not involve the DA, as Secretary of Agriculture, I had to do something about it. I even travelled to Tawitawi and Patikul, Sulu to check on the rice supply situation.
– It was only in September 2018, when President Duterte signed an Executive Order transferring the NFA, along with the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) and the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority, back to the Department of Agriculture making the Secretary of Agriculture the Chairman of the NFA Council.
– Right after the NFA was transferred to the DA, the SRP strategy was implemented and the importation of rice stocks for the NFA was immediately approved. Prices of rice stabilized and the issue of the “rice crisis” died down.
– Since the transfer of the NFA to the DA, it has established sufficient buffer stocks with its last rice importation still enough to supply the market until the end of August this year. The NFA under the DA also made history by posting the biggest local palay procurement to beef up its buffer stocks of 15 days at any given time.
This is the real story.
President Duterte was right in his latest pronouncement: There was really NO RICE CRISIS. It was just a simple case of mismanagement resulting from disagreements between the NFA Council and the NFA. At that time the DA was not yet involved.
I am making this classificatory piece because some members of the Economic Team have pointed to the 2018 “Rice Crisis” as the basis for their controversial move to liberalise the rice industry. That is another story that I will write about soon.
My parents, both public school teachers and farmers, taught me and my brothers a very important lesson in life: If you are wrong, admit it and apologise. Make amends and correct the mistake.
But they also taught us to: “Stand up and fight for your right when you are falsely accused of a wrongdoing.”
The 2018 “Rice Crisis?” I and the DA had absolutely no part in that.
You want to know who caused it all? Check the minutes of the NFA Council meeting in October 2017. The written records cannot be altered.
This is the truth and nothing but the truth.
(Photos shown were taken during the “Zamboanga Rice Crisis in August of 2018.)
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