Health advocacy group Anakalusugan welcomes the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to appoint Army Commanding General Lt. Gen. Rolando Joselito Bautista to head the National Food Authority.
Bautista, who will retire from military service on Oct. 15, will replace former NFA chief Jason Aquino who earlier asked to be relieved.
“We welcome the appointment of Gen. Bautista as the new NFA head once he retires next month. With Gen. Bautista at the helm, Anakalusugan looks forward to better NFA services to our kababayan, especially in ensuring ample supply of cheap but quality rice,” Anakalusugan media officer Florante Solmerin said.
“There can be no repeat of the bukbok rice controversy that hounded the past leadership of the NFA. While government officials have insisted that it is safe to eat weevil-infested rice, the fact that poor Filipinos were left without choice but to buy and eat bukbok rice from NFA is adding insult to injury. Filipinos deserve better than this. We all deserve to eat healthy food,” Solmerin added.
Last weekend, Duterte described Bautista as somebody he could trust to fix the rice shortage problem, which has driven prices of the grain up.
Prior to Aquino’s resignation, at least 330,000 sacks of rice imported from Thailand and Vietnam, which the NFA failed to unload because of the heavy rains in August, have become infested with weevil.
Lawmakers have likewise criticized the NFA for diverting billions of pesos in funds intended for the purchase of palay from farmers in 2017 and this year.
A Commission on Audit report earlier flagged the use of some P5.1 billion in subsidy as payment for maturing loans instead of using these for the NFA’s food security program.
“The procurement shortfall affected other programs of NFA, such as rice distribution and buffer stocking resulting in higher price of rice, unavailability of NFA rice in the market and lower inventory of rice in various NFA warehouses,” CoA said.