An opposition lawmaker on Monday demanded that Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala should take decisive steps over the department’s accusations that rice cartel and smugglers are behind the steady and unrelenting increases in rice prices before the cost of the staple goes beyond the reach of ordinary consumers. “Currently the increases in rice prices have outpaced increases in previous years; it has even outpaced the speed of the DA’s ‘investigation’ of the parties supposedly involved in hoarding,” said party-list Rep. Jonathan De La Cruz of Abakada. Dela Cruz deplored Alcala’s inaction depite the serious allegations he himself made. “Secretary Alcala has repeatedly issued statements in the media that he will file cases against those supposedly involved in rice hoarding and economic sabotage, but these have not prevented the increases in the prices of rice,” said De La Cruz, who earlier filed a resolution seeking a probe of the P442 million rice kickback. He also urged the Agriculture department to reconcile its projections and data so that Congress and the public would have a clearer picture of the country’s rice situation. “Without the right data, we will not be able to take the steps necessary to ensure the country’s food security. This includes deciding on whether we should import more or less rice. The sooner we know the real score, the sooner we can act,” Dela Cruz said. Dela Cruz, a member of the independent bloc in the House, advised Alcala to refrain from resorting to press statements to hide the real issue. “Press statements cannot be eaten. These cannot help bring rice prices down. Maybe our people, who do not have rice, have taken to chewing newspapers,” he said. Rice prices are at their highest in three years. According to the data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) website, bas.gov.ph, the average retail price of regular milled rice in the second week of September was 36.1 pesos per kilo, 3.7 pesos higher than the roughly the same period a year ago and 4.7 pesos more than what consumers paid for in 2011. De La Cruz said that the DA’s assurances regarding the country’s rice supply have not been felt in the marketplace, where consumers still complain of high rice prices. “I for one would like to believe that all is well, that we have an ample supply of rice and that we will be rice self-sufficient this year,” he said. “But if you see that prices in the market are high, and you see in the BAS website that rice prices are going up, what will you believe, the press release or the evidence?” he added. The party-list representative pointed out that “while the projections of the BAS says that 2013 palay production will hit 18.45 million MT, Sec. Alcala has boasted that the country’s output this year will be 20 million MT.”
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 23:59:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015