Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto tagged yesterday the National Food Authority (NFA) as "inutile’’ for failing to protect local farmers through subsidized rice importations as it incurred a staggering P180 billion in debt.
Saying that the P180 billion debt could not be written off, Recto said Filipinos are already paying for this debt "as we speak… (through) increased interest expense on the debt.’’
Sen. Cynthia Villar, whose Senate agriculture and food committee that heard testimonies of government officials on the NFA indebtedness and rice-related issues such as gather unabated rice smuggling in public hearing the other day, said the P180 billion debt was incurred by the NFA in the past administration.
Since it is the taxpayers who will pay these debts, Recto said it is time for the national government to think of stopping the financial hemorrhage of the NFA.
Recto also strongly suggested that government managers should think of imposing tariffs on rice importations since a study of Dr. Roehlano Briones, senior research fellow of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, a government think tank, showed that it is time for government to simply forget its international commitments under the World Trade Organization (WTO) that imposes "quantitive restrictions’’ on the importation of rice.
"Bawal mag-import ng bigas, basically. Limited lang and you pay 50 percent (in tariff),’’ Recto said when asked what a ‘’quantitative restriction’’ means.
(It is prohibited to import rice, basically. It (quantity) is limited and you pay a 50 percent tariff.) Recto said that the price of rice went down last year and that "last December, we are paying 80 percent more than what other consumers in other jurisdictions,’’ he added.
"The NFA failed in its mandate. We had 18 years to improve the agricultural sector based on our (international) commitment. And what do we get in return? We have P180 billion in debts. Prices of rice went up and it did not help our farmers,’’ he explained.
