Outright implementation of a rice subsidy program sought

Former Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara yesterday asked for the immediate implementation of a rice subsidy program for the poorest five million Filipinos, one of his last acts before leaving the agriculture post in December.

Angara said the Targeted Rice Distribution Program (TRDP) was crafted to enable the "poorest of the poor" get rice at cheaper-than-market prices and ease their financial burdens.

"The Arroyo administration should carry out that program, never mind if the idea did not come from them. The poor should be the prime beneficiaries of a rational subsidy program from the National Food Authority (NFA), " said Angara, a leading senatorial candidate of the opposition LDP-Puwersa ng Masa.

Under the program, five million Filipinos, classified by local government units and social workers as the "poorest of the poor" shall get passbooks that entitle them to cheap rice under the NFA subsidy program.

The poor can only buy the rice they need on a weekly basis to prevent the diversion of the cheap rice into the commercial market.

The price support shall be made available to an initial batch of one million, mostly urban poor residents of Metro Manila and the major urban centers, according to the program. After the initial batch shall have been served, the next four million shall be given passbooks so they can buy cheap rice from the NFA.

In fact, Angara said, most of the first one million beneficiaries of the rice program had been identified before he left the agriculture post in December.

The program was based on a policy that the "poorest of the poor" shall be the priority of any government cheap rice marketing program.

Under the Angara plan, the NFA after serving the poorest of the poor should stop the indiscriminate sale of cheap rice, which was often cornered by private traders.

The NFA, after the TRDP, shall concentrate on handling a rice buffer stock for food security reasons.