overnment will be
selling subsidized rice at P25 a kilo next month, an increase of 37 percent from
the current P18.25. Nobody should be fooled, however, by the assurance of Gloria
Arroyo’s boy genius Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap that the National Food
Authority would continue to sell the staple at the old price in poor areas.
Sure, we would be seeing some NFA trucks here and there in
the next few weeks selling one-kilo packs at P18.25. But that’s a
disaster-in-waiting that officials would prefer to head off the earliest time
possible. People are lining up for hours under the baked sun to buy a maximum of
three kilos from NFA rolling stores. Tempers are running short. If patience
snaps, hell will break loose before one can say "Wowowee."
Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro and PNP chief Avelino Razon
have found far-fetched the idea of food riots breaking out. They apparently know
something we don’t, that lining up for cheap rice would soon end. Not because of
bins overflowing with rice, but due to a decision to altogether stop selling at
P18.25.
No doubt NFA rice at P25 a kilo is more affordable.
Commercial stocks, for comparison, are selling at P34. We just hope the NFA
could maintain that price in the face of rising prices of the stocks it imports.
Yap said the NFA was losing P20 billion from the subsidized rice program. At a
programmed importation this year of 2.2 million stocks, the NFA will continue to
bleed. By how much is the question.
We’ll have an idea of that tomorrow when the NFA receives
tenders for 500,000 metric tons for delivery between now and June. The NFA has
budgeted P15.47 billion or P31 a kilo for the tender. The tender covers 400,000
tons with a maximum of 25 percent broken grains, with 50,000 tons of up to 15
percent brokens and another 50,000 percent of 5 percent brokens.
In dollar prices, tomorrow’s tender averages $740 a ton, a
bargain, considering that Vietnam parboiled rice, the world standard, is already
trading at around $800 a ton. The reason NFA posted a much lower price is
because the specifications call for "brewers rice" (at more than 4 percent
brokens) which is considered fit only for making wine or animal feed.
If NFA fails to find foreign supplier at its posted price, the P25 a kilo
rice would likely soon go the way of P18.25 rice.
