Palace mulls giving excess rice to poor through the DSWD

MANILA, Philippines—Malacañang yesterday said it was studying a proposal for the National Food Authority (NFA) to distribute surplus rice to poor households instead of leaving it to rot in warehouses.

NFA Administrator Lito Banayo is looking into the condition and quality of rice in warehouses in view of the proposal of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) to give the excess staple free to the poor, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said.

“Certainly that’s a good suggestion, but that will be studied by the NFA administrator,” Lacierda told reporters. He said that Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman would also be consulted.

The KMP has urged President Aquino to distribute surplus rice to the more than 4 million Filipinos who he said in Monday’s State of the Nation Address were eating less than three meals a day.

The NFA admitted that there was an overimportation of rice by the previous administration even for the current year, and that shipments were arriving in the country in spite of the glut.

The agency has yet to issue an inventory of rice in warehouses.

Poverty reduction programs

Soliman proposed that the rice be used in the poverty-reduction program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

The commodity could benefit the DSWD’s supplemental feeding program in day care centers and the food-for-school program, which entails giving pupils a kilo of rice for each day of attendance, she said.

Or, it could be used in a food-for-work program for internally displaced persons in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, where rice will be given for each day that they work to rebuild their homes or repair roads and bridges, Soliman said.

Around 16,000 families remain in evacuation centers nearly two years after secessionist rebels attacked villages in North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte following the breakdown in peace talks with the government.

“We will give them rice for the days that they work,” she said in an interview by phone.

Food-for-school program

The food-for-school program is being reviewed by the administration because of some leakages. A 2007 Commission on Audit report showed many teachers and parents shelling out money to distribute packs of NFA rice.

There had been some “anecdotal evidence” showing that beneficiary day care and elementary schools were not getting the right amount of supply because some sacks were lost along the way, officials said.

Elena Bautista-Horn, spokesperson of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, yesterday sought to explain the previous administration’s importation decisions.

“If the rice has been too many or too little, maybe we should give them a little space because it was also a policy call,” Horn said at a news forum.

Horn noted a global food crisis in 2007 and 2008, and while food riots erupted in some countries, there was no violence in the Philippines. –TJ Burgonio, Leila B. Salaverria, Philippine Daily Inquirer