Rural Missionaries wants NFA to keep rice subsidy budget

A faith-based group wants the national government to keep the budget for rice subsidy of the National Food Authority (NFA). The Rural Missionaries of the Philippines called on the government last week to retain the rice subsidy. “We are supporting moves to retain the NFA budget because it will stabilize prices and ensure a steady rice supply," Notre Dame de Sion Sister Patricia Fox, the group's executive secretary, told the Union of Catholic Asian News. In the P1.64-trillion proposed budget for 2011, the NFA’s P8-billion rice procurement fund was scrapped and transferred to the budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development budget (DSWD) for the conditional cash-transfer program. NFA administrator Angelito Banayo had asked for a P15-billion budget to increase rice procurements in anticipation of a rice shortage due to the La Niña weather phenomenon. Instead, the Aquino administration gave the agency zero budget for 2011, which, according to senators, was tantamount to “abolishing the NFA." Rice prices are expected to increase worldwide because of limited supply even in rice exporting countries like Thailand and Vietnam, Fox noted. For her part, DSWD chief Corazon Soliman said the additional budget of her department will be used to buy rice or fund its poverty-alleviation program. President Benigno Aquino III ordered a budget proposal review for a “mutually acceptable solution" among concerned government agencies. The budget cut aims to “reform" the NFA, the President said. Aquino said he expects to finalize the NFA’s road map after he returns from an official visit to the US this week. —With Jesse Edep/VS, GMANews.TV