REMAI ALEJADO
ZAMBOSUR PPB
Online news contributor
The escalating prices of commercial rice in Mindanao is said to have agitated President Gloria Arroyo, enough to make her dispatch her probe team, the Cabinet Officers for Regional Development (CORD) to check out the phenomenon.
Arroyo, herself, is not taking chances, that she personally sent Exec. Sec. Eduardo Ermita and wanted him to get inputs from local officials, heads of line agencies related to food and energy, rice millers, traders and farmers with regards to the prices of commercial rice in the Mindanao.
First stop was ZamboSur, where Gov. Aurora Cerilles gathered round her mayors, legislators, and those people whose businesses were connected with rice production for a forum on food and energy crisis.
Also joining in the June 16 meeting at Hotel Alindahaw were heads of the NFA, DTI, DepEd, DSWD, DA, NBI, TransCo, Zamsureco-I.
There, Ermita was told that the P42-47 per kilo of rice in the market was brought about by the intrusion of palay buyers and traders from outside the province, who, at all times, are the ones prescribing the buying price, from P20-P25.
Dr. Anatalio Cagampang Jr., owner of a rice milling business in the province, said that because of what happened, he was forced to compete with what others did.
He then sought the government’s intercession and asked that outside palay buyers be regulated in coming over ZamboSur and do their buying business so that the price of palay will eventually be lowered and thus the ultimate output, which is milled rice, be priced low.
Another businesswoman from Molave, ex-mayor Encarnacion Blancia, said that Salug Valley may be one of the biggest rice granary in the province but commercial rice are being sold there at P42-48 per kilo.
This irony, she adds, is simply happening because the present rice supply does not correspond with demand, explaining it was harvest season in her town when the hype of rice crisis in Manila was reported and alarmed traders from Manila and Cebu then started buying most of the milled rice.
The situation could have been mitigated if the NFA was quick enough to saturate the market with government-subsidized rice and must do it beginning this month until September, Blancia added.
In her response, Cerilles said she will ask the provincial board to pass measures that will address the problem, a resolution of sort mandating 70 percent of the rice production be retained in the province while the remaining 30 percent be allowed for the buy and sell.
Well, even with this scenario, the province could still move on with enough rice supply since Cerilles said her visit with NFA National Administrator Jussep Navarro has bore fruit, and that the NFA head has already directed its regional office to double rice deliveries in the province.
It can be recalled that Cerilles went to Manila last week for the said purpose, bringing with her the resolutions of the League of Municipalities-ZamboSur asking for more rice deliveries in their respective towns.
Ermita, after listening to all these, noted all recommendations and said he will present these to the president in their next cabinet meeting.
Before leaving for Manila, Ermita made a surprise visit at the city’s public market where he inspected prices of commercial rice being sold from P42-P48 a kilo.