Back blasts on NFA critics

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
4/18-24/2011



There is a campaign by local globalist underlings to vilify and demonize the National Food Authority (NFA) as an organization and public service institution, despite the agency’s long 37-year history of serving the nation well. Chief among these detractors are two ranking members of PeNoy Aquino’s Cabinet, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and Budget and Management Secretary Butch Abad.

Both have pointed their accusing fingers at the NFA, branding it as corrupt for over-buying stocks of rice, causing inventories to rot, and losing government close to P500 million in delivery expenses just to deliver an eighth’s worth of those stocks to warehouses. But thanks to the National Food Authority Employees’ Association (NFA-EA) and its very well-researched documentary exposés, the claims of those two are now exposed as outright lies. I had Mr. Roman Sanchez and Mr. Larry Tan, NFA union president and vice-president, respectively, together with Marilyn Qui, also of the NFA-EA, as my guests on my cable TV show “Politics Today” on GNN last week.

PeNoy Aquino III’s inaugural address on July 1, 2010 highlighted the alleged corruption at the NFA, lambasting it with all sins imaginable. His speech writers were obviously following a decade-long script, since this anti-NFA line has been part of the official government spiel for the past 10 years, silently egged on by multilateral agencies, the World Bank, ADB, and their local consultants. In it, PeNoy said, “In 2004: 117,000 metric tons of rice was the shortage in the supply of the Philippines . What they (NFA) bought were 900,000 metric tons. Even if you multiply more than seven times the amount of shortage, they still bought more than what was needed…”

What PeNoy may not have known (or is incapable of knowing) is that Cesar Purisima was already a member of the NFA Council--the agency’s deciding body--way back in 2004 and was a party to the decision on the importation. So the question now is: Why did PeNoy appoint a culprit in that alleged over-purchase of rice in 2004? Also, now that he and his Cabinet have been told of Purisima’s complicity, when will they ever investigate and fire the guy?

Purisima showed his utter hypocrisy in following up on his boss’ inaugural statements regarding the NFA when he said this, which appeared on the July 29, 2010 page 1 of the Manila Standard Today’s “Malacañang may abolish rice agency as debt balloons” story: “‘Gross mismanagement’ had seen that debt (of NFA) balloon to more that P170 billion this year…”

Well, now that we know Purisima, as a member of the NFA Council, was a party to that “gross mismanagement,” we ask him: Why didn’t you object and expose this “gross mismanagement” at that time? For sure, Purisima didn’t resign from the Gloria Arroyo Cabinet until mid-2005 when the Hyatt 10 sensed signals coming from the US Embassy of its dissatisfaction with the “Hello Garci” tenant in Malacañang. But as has been the practice of the Yellow regimes, from Cory Aquino to Gloria Arroyo, they have appointed to different agencies people who would best exacerbate the corruption and misdirect the policies to ensure these agencies fall into discredit--or, a sabotage, in simple terms--just as Cory Aquino brought Napocor to ruin when she appointed power oligarch Ernesto Aboitiz to be president of that state firm. And as Purisima helped sully the NFA from the inside; now, he wants to dismantle it from the outside.

The NFA-EA also catches Jesuit political acolyte Butch Abad in his contradictions. The NFA-EA position paper entitled, “NFA privatization and decoupling--A deliberate move to endanger food security,” its manifesto on House Bill (HB) 4284 entitled, “The National Food Authority Reorganization Act of 2011,” reports: “To justify the shutting down of NFA, Secretary Abad cited data from the World Bank that it costs the NFA as much as P8.60 to deliver P1 of low-priced rice. Translating Abad’s fantasy would imply that in 2009, where the NFA delivered nationwide P49.2 billion worth of low-priced rice, the agency would therefore incur P423 billion cost in disposing of the same. In that year, the NFA only spent about P10 billion on subsidy, interest payment, personnel salaries and wages, and other (operating costs). So, the ration should be 1:4.95 or NFA spends P1.00 to deliver P4.95 worth of low-priced rice.” Ateneo has obviously not taught the acolyte to lie as “Jesuitically” as he should.

The NFA-EA has given back blasts to the malicious criticisms against the NFA. Now, it is the PeNoy government and Cabinet members who are on the defensive, unable to explain the many contradictions of their claims and positions. PeNoy’s appointed NFA chief have not only once, not twice, but on multiple occasions somersaulted on his claims about the NFA rice stocks--at one time saying NFA bodegas were bursting at their seams, then the next time around saying the country needs to import more; also, claiming huge amounts of rotting rice, which were nowhere to be seen later when the “huge” pile was requested by media to be documented.

PeNoy’s Cabinet execs stumble over each other with contradictory claims: Agriculture Secretary Alcala on April 7, 2011 said, “We will not be importing additional rice for 2011. Harvest is good,” only to be contradicted by NFA administrator Lito Banayo’s declaration on April 11, 2011 that “(the) Philippines will import an additional 300,000 metric tons of rice to prevent a shortage in the latter part of the year.”

Despite all their blunders and obfuscations, the privatization of the NFA has long been planned, as shown by a timeline provided by the NFA-EA:

• 1980: WB Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) $200-million loan - phase out of price control and subsidy for farm inputs including fertilizer;
• 1983: Increase of loan to $300-million - on condition that the private sector is allowed to export rice, as price controls for rice and corn are dismantled;
• 1985: US PL-480 conditionalities - liberalize fertilizer imports (which led to the death of PhilPhos), privatize wheat/flour imports and non-grain trading, thus reducing NFA revenues;
• 1986: Dismantling of government-supported monopolies in international trading of rice, corn, wheat;
• 1993: ADB loan agreement leading to complete subsidy withdrawal in 1998;
• 1998: USAID-AGILE study on privatization of NFA;
• 1999: Required privatization of rice importation, etc. in exchange for ADB’s $175-million loan grant;
• 2001: Incorporation of AGILE plan to dismantle NFA under Arroyo’s Medium Term Development Plan;
• 2010: Proposed zero budget for NFA under PeNoy as the WB recommends the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program instead of rice rationing so that the US and transnational corporations can control rice trade and sell their surplus rice to the poor.

The consequence of all past privatizations like power, water, tool ways, and ports have been very dire for the people as costs have shot up, making these services beyond the reach of ordinary folks. When this happens to rice supply, we can imagine the social turmoil we’ll face in the future.

It’s a chilling prospect but a desired explosion of a social volcano nonetheless for the foreign powers to pick up the pieces.

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