DESPITE setbacks due to controversies surrounding the rice supply from National Food Administration (NFA), the Cebu Provincial Government is set to launch anew its programs that are centered on rice.
In a press conference on Friday, May 17, 2024, Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia said the NFA allocated an initial 5,000 sacks of rice for the Capitol, with each sack containing 50 kilos.
She said this was the promise NFA Acting Administrator Larry del Rosario Lacson made when the latter visited the Capitol last April 30.
She said the rice will support the Capitol’s programs such as Sugbong Merkadong Barato, Sugbo School Feeding Program and Bugasan sa Kababayen-an saw Barangay, that were halted last year due to lack of supply from the NFA.
“We were totally dependent on the NFA selling rice to the Province of Cebu at P25 per kilo,” Garcia said.
However, the governor said they will have to make alterations to conform to the upcoming launching of a national program of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that sells rice at P29 per kilo.
Garcia said the Province will also sell at P29 per kilo instead of the previous P20 per kilo under the Sugbong Merkadong Barato program, selling only to indigents and the “poorest of the poor.”
“That is still way, way below the present market price of (rice at) P50 to P60 per kilo. That is going to help the constituent a lot,” Garcia said.
In the lead-up to the 2022 presidential election, Marcos repeatedly promised to bring down the price of rice to P20 per kilo. But last November, his administration said that this would not likely happen soon because of external factors that included a “15-year high” increase in the price of rice in the world market.
Garcia said that the list of beneficiaries has been already provided by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) 7, and assured that local government units were not involved to avoid favoritisms.
“In fact, we have issued those QR cards. In fact it’s QR-coded, when they purchase the rice per week because we will supply depending on the available supply. We will be allowing them to purchase anywhere from three kilos to five kilos a week,” she said.
She said that once beneficiaries use up their allocation of rice for the week, they will have to wait the next week to make another purchase.
This ensures the program will not be abused and the rice is allocated evenly to the beneficiaries, Garcia said.
The Provincial Government’s other rice-centric programs are the Sugbo School Feeding Program that provides hot meals to all basic education public school students in the province and the Bugasan sa Kababayen-an sa Barangay, which sells rice at P27 per kilo through women’s groups in barangays.
Capitol made a deal with the NFA 7 to purchase NFA rice at P25 per kilo and sell it to qualified beneficiaries through the Sugbong Merkadong Barato at P20 per kilo for a maximum of five kilos per beneficiary per week.
The Provincial Government allocated P100 million for the program, in which the deficit of P20 million from the total sales would be dubbed as socio-economic assistance to the least fortunate.
Halted
All three programs were halted when former NFA administrator Roderico Bioco last year prohibited the sale of the agency’s rice buffers without his permission.
Capitol requested the former NFA official to reconsider the policy, however he did not respond to the requests, Garcia said.
She said the Capitol was forced to temporarily suspend the programs due to the lack of supply of NFA rice.
Bioco was later accused of selling NFA rice to selected traders and private individuals.
Garcia said that this resulted in NFA rice being sold with a huge mark-up in the market at P50 per kilo or more.
The controversy resulted in the suspension of Bioco and 138 NFA officials and employees. / EHP