“And I was afraid, and went away, and hid your talent in the ground, and stole the rice for myself….” (Paraphrased) Matthew 25:25
The President arrived Manila last week from his Australian visit and special summit in Melbourne on securing marine navigation around the West Philippine Sea.
The Summit, hosted by Australia, was inspired by the President’s address to the Australian Parliament: “I will not allow any attempt by any foreign power to take even one square inch of our sovereign territory.”
At the Summit, Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced $64 million in funding for maritime security, on the first day of a special summit with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Melbourne.
“The countries of our region rely on oceans, seas, and rivers for livelihoods and commerce, including free and open sea lanes in the South China Sea,” Wong said in her address to a forum on maritime cooperation.
Wong did not specify which countries the funding would go to but “welcomed efforts” by Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines to “delimit their maritime boundaries”.
Meanwhile, as the Philippine President was busily generating foreign aid, his administrators back at home were busily shortcutting the trading processes of the National Food Authority, amid the recently reported alleged illegal sale of 75,000 bags of rice, worth P93.75 million, to private traders, without undergoing the bidding process.
Upon learning of this, “The situation actually does not only involve the anomalous sale of NFA rice. It also is an examination of some of the procedures within the NFA that were undertaken without Board approval, without the proper discussion within the NFA and with the DA and with the rest of the Cabinet.”
Last week, Sen. Cynthia Villar said her panel is eyeing on the investigation of the reported sale of NFA rice to certain private traders at low prices disadvantageous to the government
“We will investigate that. I have personal experience concerning that. That’s why I am not happy about it,” the Senator said.
The consequence of selling NFA buffered rice stock is to sell it in private transactions. The dealers acquire the buffer stock at extremely low cost disadvantages not only to the government for selling at a loss, but especially deprives the public of a reasonable market price.
The Department of Agriculture earlier disclosed there’s an ongoing conduct of investigation on the matter. Agriculture Chief Francisco Tiu Laurel previously ordered NFA Administrator Roderico Bioco and Assistant Administrator for Operations Lemuel Pagayunan “to voluntarily take their leave of absence” while the probe is ongoing. Another 139 NFA personnel have been suspended.
Marcos, meanwhile, assured he would not tolerate anomalies in the agriculture sector. “So, we have taken the safe measure of suspending all of those who have been shown to may have been involved in any of these wrongdoings such as the anomalous sale but also the cavalier way in which the procedures that have been set out in the rules have been ignored,” the President said.
It may be well for the several Departments to conduct investigations in the transactions of their respective administrators to weed out the thieves among them dong business for their own aggrandizement.
________________________________
Author’s email: [email protected]
