Duterte orders abolition of 18-member NFA Council

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the abolition of inter-agency National Food Authority Council, his agriculture chief said Friday.

In an interview with DZMM radio, Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol said Duterte made the verbal order during a meeting with the country’s rice traders in Malacañang on Thursday.

According to Piñol, Duterte decided to scrap the NFA Council because the leader wanted to have only “one focal person for each concern.”

Meanwhile, the NFA and other agriculture-related agencies will be transferred back to the Department of Agriculture.

To note, the NFA Council is different from the NFA management, which makes recommendations to the council on procurement operations, among others. The two offices were formed under Presidential Decree No. 1770.

The 18-member policy-making NFA Council is composed of officials from the central bank and the trade, finance and socioeconomic planning departments.

Duterte’s decision came amid the reported depletion of subsidized rice.

NFA Council chairman and Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. on Wednesday said the grains agency’s buffer stock is good for just 0.35 days, well below the 15-day rice reserve that the body is required to maintain at any given time.

But Evasco assured the public that the country will not run out of the staple grain amid the expected arrival of imported 250,000 metric tons of rice just in time for the beginning of lean months.

A total of 501,000 MT of rice was also delivered to the country last month under the Minimum Access Volume allowed for import by a member country, as a commitment to the World Trade Organization, Evasco also said.