Agriculture chief Emmanuel Piñol not resigning

MANILA, Philippines — Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol brushed aside yesterday calls for his resignation, saying he should not be blamed for the failures of others, particularly over rice shortages in some regions and the soaring prices of the staple.

Piñol said he would resign only if ordered by President Duterte, stressing that he served at the pleasure of the appointing power.

Malacañang said that despite an unfolding food security crisis highlighted by the rice shortage in parts of Mindanao, Piñol still enjoyed the trust and confidence of Duterte and is unlikely to leave his post “unless fired.”

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. made this clear when sought for comment on calls from some lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Danilo Suarez and Deputy Minority Leader Lito Atienza for Piñol to resign due to incompetence.

“It’s like asking me to answer for the sins of my neighbor,” Piñol told “The Chiefs” last night on Cignal TV’s One News channel. “The President appointed me to this position. If he thinks I’m incompetent, I’m ready to go. I’m ready to go home to my farm.”

Also asked to resign were National Food Authority chief Jason Aquino and members of the interagency NFA Council.

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) has also asked Piñol to step down for his “absurd and unacceptable arguments” to justify the importation of rice and fish.

Piñol, speaking to “The Chiefs” last night on Cignal TV’s One News channel, said calling for his resignation over the rice crisis is akin to blaming him for the failure of others.

He stressed that the NFA is not under his department. Asked if he supported the NFA’s abolition, he initially did not reply, but later said it should remain as a regulatory body and should perform its original mandate that covers other basic food commodities.

Roque said the administration expects the situation to normalize at the onset of the next main harvest next month.

On reports that Piñol was in favor of legalizing rice smuggling in Zamboanga, Roque said the agriculture chief was misquoted.

Piñol stressed he would only resign if ordered by President Duterte.

“I serve at the pleasure of the President. If the President says he is not happy with my performance, I would gladly pack up my bags and go home to my farm,” he said. “My only consolation would be that I am not facing issues of corruption.”

He told The STAR that rice prices began rising as NFA stocks were depleted because of a five-month delay in importing buffer stocks. The delay, he said, was due to the bickering between the NFA and the NFA Council, both of which are not under his department.

The agriculture chief said some legislators do not understand that the issue of rice shortage – along with the importation of bukbok (weevil)-infested rice – is not for the Department of Agriculture (DA) to address.

“The reason why I figured prominently in the raging rice supply and price issue was because I volunteered to help resolve the problem since nobody in government was on top of the situation,” he pointed out.

“I am already helping even if it is not part of my job. Why blame me for the rice bukbok issue? The DA has nothing to do with rice importation. The DA is only involved in production,” he added.

On the issue of importation of galunggong (round scad), Piñol said he hopes he would be given the opportunity to further explain his position – that such importation is needed to stabilize the supply of the fish in the market.

“I take full responsibility because BFAR (Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources) is under the DA. Given a chance to explain, I believe legislators will understand the program,” he said.

He added even Senate agriculture committee chair Cynthia Villar had apologized for wrongly blaming the DA for the rice shortage, thinking it had officially reassumed jurisdiction over the NFA.

“She advised me to make a statement so that people would know that NFA is not under me. I told her that I understood the confusion caused by the public announcement of the NFA’s return to the DA,” he said.

“I told Senator Villar that when the Zambasulta rice crisis broke out, I called up Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to volunteer to help resolve the issue. While the lack of NFA rice in the region is mainly the concern of NFA, somebody in the administration had to step in and take control of the situation,” Piñol said.

Last April, Malacañang announced the return of the NFA and two other agriculture-related agencies to the DA. The President, however, has yet to issue an executive order on the matter to make the arrangement official.

“At the end of the day, when people are unhappy, they will not just differentiate the DA from the NFA or the local governments from Malacañang and will just blame the whole government,” he added.

No more crisis

Piñol reiterated that the Zambasulta rice crisis is considered over with the allocation of about 2.6 million bags of commercial rice, enough to satisfy the market in the next six months.

His declaration, however, that bukbok-infested rice is safe to eat has invited criticism from Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian who maintained that Filipinos, even the poor, should not settle for low quality rice.

Gatchalian said it is the job of the NFA to ensure that rice imports are up to standards and that the necessary protocols are followed.

“Secretary Piñol should see to it that those who failed to do their jobs are held accountable,” Gatchalian said, apparently unaware that the NFA is not under the DA.

In an interview with reporters, Gatchalian reiterated his call for the abolition of the NFA citing its failure to fulfill its mandate of ensuring a stable supply of affordable rice in the country.

Gatchalian said the NFA has been receiving close to P7 billion in subsidies from the government annually and yet it has not stabilized rice supply.

Sen. Nancy Binay, for her part, urged Malacañang to step into the conflict between the NFA and the NFA Council.

“I hope the Palace can do something about the fit of misunderstandings between the Council and NFA. The NFA and the NFA Council have been engaged in a blame game for over a year already. It is sad that the row between the two offices has already reached a deadlock placing the entire country in an episodic and often cyclical food insecurity status,” Binay said.

Abolish NFA

In a related development, economic experts belonging to the Foundation for Economic Freedom Inc. (FEFI) have expressed support for the call of Villar and Gatchalian to abolish the NFA.

The FEFI has for its board of advisers former prime minister Cesar Virata, former socio-economic planning secretary Gerardo Sicat, National Scientist Dr. Raul Fabella and former World Bank resident representative Thomas Allen.

“The NFA has only caused and aggravated inflation and rice shortage in several regions, compounded the debt and losses of the national government and provided opportunities for graft and corruption for its officers and employees, from the purchase of imported rice to the distribution and transportation of subsidized rice,” FEFI said in a statement.

“We urge the Senate and the House of Representatives to immediately pass the rice tariffication bill. We support a version of the bill that will abolish the National Food Authority and its powers, including imposing import quotas on the private sector in the importation of rice and to license traders and importers,” the foundation said.

The group also supported plans to set tariff as low as possible to make rice more affordable to more than 100 million rice-consuming Filipinos.

FEFI said “the private sector should be free to import rice from any source in whatever quantities the market needs. This is the only solution to the current rice shortage crisis and to the pervasive malnutrition caused by high food prices.”

“To maintain and manage buffer stocks, a new and much smaller agency can be created,” the foundation also said.

NFA, for its part, denied that it is selling bukbok-infested rice in the market amid the continuous fumigation of imported rice.

NFA’s Aquino said the more than 200,000 sacks of rice affected with weevils last week are not yet owned by the grains agency and these grains are not being sold to the public.

Aquino said the supplier will shoulder the cost of fumigation of the infested stocks, which will still be subject to standard inspection and evaluation by NFA’s technical experts before these are finally accepted, based on the quality specifications stipulated in the contract.

The infested portions of imported deliveries constitute only 0.02 percent of the total volume of NFA imported rice.

Meanwhile, the NFA said it has beefed up its food security stocks for the Zamboanga peninsula, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi (Zambasulta) area to 2,000 bags a day or about half of the region’s 5,340 bags daily rice requirement. 

On the other hand, NFA said it continues to intensify rice distribution activities nationwide to make its low-priced rice more accessible and available to more consumers.

Some 15,892 accredited rice retail outlets are currently selling NFA rice all over the country as it currently distributes an average of 58,000 bags of rice a day.

 Price control

Meanwhile, rice watchdog Bantay Bigas is urging the Duterte administration to immediately impose price control on rice to make it affordable and accessible to Filipino consumers.

“We are asking President Duterte to immediately issue an Executive Order that would determine the price of rice or set price control. Based on the research conducted by the group, it is right to sell rice at P34 to P38 per kilo. At present, the price of rice in Zamboanga City would reach as high as P70 up to P80 per kilo. Meanwhile, in Nueva Ecija, it is P43 up to P56 a kilo,” said Cathy Estavillo, Bantay Bigas spokesperson

Estavillo said rice traders are the ones dictating the price of rice while the government is “just silent on the issue.” Bantay Bigas said that as “rule of thumb,” retail prices are 70 percent higher than farm gate prices.

“The Duterte administration is the one responsible for this rice crisis given its neoliberal policy on food security. The NFA was confined to attending only to the buffer stock, and failed to secure local palay procurement so private traders would not be able to control rice stock nationwide,” Estavillo said.  –  Louise Maureen Simeon, Marvin Sy, Ding Cervantes, Rhodina Villanueva