ILOILO City – Some 1,500 bags of surplus rice from the National Food Authority (NFA) in Capiz will augment the supply in Iloilo as the latter’s buffer stock is “very, very negligible.”
“It could not make a dent in terms of buffer stocking,” said NFA assistant regional director Ruben Manatad.
NFA-Iloilo no longer have supplies for the market, which is why assistance from other provinces is necessary, Manatad said.
Antique has 500 remaining bags but the province decided to hold on to its stocks.
Available stocks in Iloilo were intended for the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.
These stocks have already been paid, Manatad said.
Despite the unavailability of NFA rice in the market, the price of rice in Western Visayas remained “stable.” The region is a surplus area, the NFA official assured.
“[There is] no problem, no reason to alarm consumers,” he said, adding that there are a lot of rice stocks on display in the market aside from NFA-subsidized rice. Some have prices as low as P33 to P34 per kilo.
In addition, 100,000 metric tons of the approved 250,000 MT of rice imported into the Philippines were intended for Western Visayas, Manatad said.
The imported rice were expected to arrive in June. (With PNA/PN)
