NFA Council to be reconstituted

MANILA, Philippines — The government will reconstitute the National Food Authority (NFA) Council, with the chairmanship going back to the Department of Agriculture (DA).

The government has toned down its move to scrap the functions of the NFA Council, which by law is not even possible.

Malacañang confirmed that the NFA Council would not be abolished but would only be placed under the Office of the President. 

“It will just be reconstituted. The term used by the President is abolish, but what he actually meant is reconstituting the agency,” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol explained in a phone interview yesterday.

“DA will become a member of the Council and since by the law that created the council, DA will be the lead agency that will sit as the chairman,” he said.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said President Duterte is also considering the approval of rice importation to be centralized under the office of agriculture Undersecretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, “subject to the review of the Office of the Executive Secretary.”

The NFA Council was created through Presidential Decree No. 4, which was later amended to Presidential Decree No. 1770.

Abolishing the council cannot be done by an executive order from the President as abolition requires repeal of the law. But the President has the power to reconstitute and restructure the membership of the NFA Council.

The DA originally holds power over the NFA. In 2014, former president Benigno Aquino III signed an order that placed the NFA under the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization, removing the DA from the NFA Council.

“President Duterte finds it topsy turvy that there are a lot of agencies involved in the issue. According to him, all agencies related to agriculture will be returned to DA,” Piñol said, referring to the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) and Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority (FPA).

The four agencies alongside eight others have been placed under Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco’s wing at the start of the Duterte administration.

Evasco and NFA administrator Jason Aquino have been in disagreement over the plan to import rice following depletion of stocks.

“Amid contrasting opinions on the rice situation over the past weeks, the President has spoken. He has thrown his full trust and confidence on the NFA,” Aquino said in a statement.

Duterte, during a party at Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila last Thursday, said he told Aquino to “ignore the Rice Council” and to “go ahead and make the importations.”

Since 2016, Piñol has been pushing for the rescinding of Aquino’s executive order that transferred the NFA, NIA, PCA and FPA agencies to the Office of the President from the DA.

He submitted a proposed executive order to be supposedly signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea but until now, that has yet to materialize.

Eventually, Piñol stopped pushing for it and said he would just wait for instructions from the President.  – Alexis Romero, Marvin Sy, Paolo Romero