BY GERARD NAVAL

AN official of the Manila archdiocese social action arm yesterday asked the government to involve faith-based organizations in its plan to make available subsidized rice to the poor.

Coordination between the government and these groups will ensure that the rice being sold by the National Food Authority at P18.25 a kilo will go to the intended beneficiaries, said Fr. Anton Pascual, executive director of Caritas Manila.

The NFA on Monday said it is pulling out the cheap rice from public markets by September and will sell this only to those with family access cards which are being given to poor families identified by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Pascual said it is necessary to put check-and-balance mechanisms in place to prevent the program from being "used" by local government officials.

"Local government unit outlets should be evaluated and monitored by the DSWD regarding political vested interest. With Church outlets, walang politika at mga vested interests because faith-based organizations are credible outlets," he said.

He said Caritas Manila alone has a mapping of poor families earning less than P200 a day. Caritas Manila also has around 160 NFA-accredited outlets in parishes and chapels in the archdiocese.

Pascual reiterated the Church is always for "critical collaboration" with the government, especially when it comes to helping the poor.

The NFA said its commercial rice, being sold at P25 a kilo, is available at accredited retailers and institutionalized Bigasan ni Gloria sa Palengke outlets in the market.

The NFA allayed fears it would run out of the cheap rice.

NFA administrator Jessup Navarro said: "We are injecting some 28 million bags of rice in the next six months to stabilize supply and preempt any possible spiraling of prices especially during the lean months."

For the months of July and August, he said the NFA should be able to distribute some 6.5 million bags of rice, "but the volume will be reduced to five million bags in September when the main harvest starts and maintained at three million bags per month as the harvest peaks until December."

For the first week of July, the average retail price of regular milled rice was P35.99 a kilo and well-milled P38.44, the NFA said.

President Arroyo said rice prices in the country remain the lowest in the Asia Pacific region because of measures taken by the government.

"We have done this with our farming programs, combined with more vigilance over prices and greater severity against price manipulation," she said at the launching of the P500 million "Katas ng VAT (value added tax) Para sa Maliliit na Ospital" in Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao.

She also said the dramatic surge in the prices of fuel and food has resulted in a global price crisis that is "unseen since the great depression and the wake of World War II."

Sen. Mar Roxas said skyrocketing food and commodity prices will further drive up the incidence of hunger.

He called on Arroyo to use next week's state of the nation address to present a comprehensive plan to deal with the crises.

"We don't need a litany of achievements and new promises. We can't have another SONA that only repackages existing projects under new names. What we need is an honest statement on the state of the nation - the state of people's empty pockets and grumbling stomachs - and a real, focused action plan on how we are going to get out of this mire of uncertainty," he said.

"Things are bound to get worse with what's happening now, and with how the government is addressing it," he added.