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Legarda urges NFA to give excess rice imports to the hungry


Senator Loren Legarda urged the Aquino administration to give to hungry Filipinos the rice allegedly rotting in the warehouses of the National Food Authority (NFA). "Gawing humanitarian case na lang ito at ipamudmod na lang sa mga probinsya na may (They should just treat it as a humanitarian case and distribute the rice to provinces with the) highest incidents of hunger," Legarda told reporters during a weekly Senate forum on Thursday. Legarda issued the statement after President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III mentioned in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) that the NFA may have over-imported rice. Subsidized NFA rice for poor families is sold at P25 per kilo. In the "poorest areas," it is sold at P18.25 per kilo. Legarda explained that the government cannot just suddenly sell the rice in NFA warehouses because it will affect the prices of other kinds of rice. "Kasi pag binenta (If you suddenly sell that much) you will flood the market," she said. Legarda thus said the NFA and the Aquino administration should just give away the rice to the hungry. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to decide that if there is an oversupply and there are four million going hungry, (you) give it (to them)," she said. "It's like (a) household, ginugutom ang mga bata pero marami naman palang pagkain sa (they let the children go hungry even if there is food in the) refrigerator," she added. She likewise encouraged the government to set aside for farming research and development the money usually used to import rice. "Let's rely on our own farmers," she said. She also said the government should separate the regulatory and proprietory function of the NFA. "Yung regulatory, pwede naman sa agriculture yan eh (Their regulatory function can be given to the Department of Agriculture)," she said. - GMANews.TV

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