Sunday, April 27, 2008 Recipient list delays rice pullout: official
INCOMPLETE lists of qualified poor families in Metro Manila threaten to stall the pullout of National Food Authority (NFA) rice in Metro Manila and their sale in depressed area.
Social Welfare secretary Esperanza Cabral admitted that Pateros town, San Juan and Quezon City have so far submitted incomplete lists, while other areas have no lists at all.
"In the last meeting we had (Friday), the local government units (LGUs) submitted only seven percent of the estimated names we need. It doesn't look like we will meet our deadline," Cabral said.
She said this prompted Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita to call a meeting of Metro Manila mayors on Monday, where they are to submit their respective lists of beneficiaries.
"Representatives of the agriculture department were also summoned to the meeting on Monday," she said.
"Ermita gave the local governments until Monday to submit their lists. But the burden is still on us because we will have to validate the lists," she said.
Cabral said the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) have now included names which is 30 percent each from the said areas and a third city that she did not specify. She said the DSWD has started verifying them.
She said until the DSWD validates all those lists and issues the corresponding family access cards, the cheap NFA rice cannot be pulled out from the markets.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo earlier gave the DSWD until this weekend to determine which families are "poor enough" to qualify to buy P18.25 per kilo of NFA rice.
"We cannot remove the rice from the public markets and give out family access cards at rice outlets," Cabral said.
When asked if the local governments are deliberately not giving their lists just to prevent the NFA from pulling out cheap rice from the markets, she said, "I don't know, you ask them."
But she expects the local governments to work overtime this weekend to complete their lists.
Meanwhile, to end persistent reports about fake family access cards, the DSWD is eyeing adding high-tech features to the cards.
Cabral said aside from a unique numbering system, the cards would contain bar codes that will trigger an alarm when scanned.
"We will place bar code systems so that the cards whose bar codes do not match will trigger an alarm when scanned. That way, fakers will not get the cheap rice," she said.
She said this was aside from the "Beneficiary Identified for Government Assistance (Bigas) numbers" the DSWD will issue to the LGUs to prevent the proliferation of fake cards.
Cabral admitted they were forced to take these measures because of the tendency of many unscrupulous Filipinos to take advantage of the situation.
"We are taking all measures to make sure the cards will not be easily faked," she said. (JMR/Sunnex)
