NFA to go after rumormongers

MANILA, Philippines - The National Food Authority (NFA) is mulling the filing of charges against rumormongers who created disturbance in some major rice trading centers in Manila and Quezon City last week.

NFA spokesman Rex Estoperez yesterday said this was the initial agreement with NFA administrator Orlan Calayag and Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala in a meeting last Thursday.

They also agreed to coordinate with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the investigation and filing of appropriate charges against the group behind the disturbance allegedly meant to project that there was a rice shortage.

Estoperez said the NFA is preparing to file charges of economic sabotage. "Definitely we will go after them," he said.

Last Thursday some 5,000 people trooped to the Commonwealth market in Quezon City on reports that the NFA would be distributing free rice.

Those who lined up claimed to have received a text message from Calayag, saying the NFA would distribute free rice.

Some of those who showed up at the market were given slips of paper bearing the name of a group called "Ang Gawad Pinoy," and were told they would receive free NFA rice if they signed up for membership.

Estoperez said he got in touch with lawyer Tonike Padilla, leader of the Ang Gawad Pinoy Consumers Cooperative, who claimed his group was used in the disturbance.

Padilla's group alleged the NFA had overpriced the importation of rice from Vietnam last April.

The crowd that converged in Commonwealth market came from the towns of San Mateo and E. Rodriguez in Rizal.

The same disturbance happened at the Pritil market in Tondo, Manila where thousands also lined up hoping to get free rice.

NFA executive assistant Dennis Arpia said the phone numbers of Calayag and several officials of the NFA, including his own, had been hacked into sending the text messages. – With Eva Visperas, Manny Galvez