(Eagle News)–For Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, the National Food Authority Council is no longer needed.
In a radio interview on Sunday, Alvarez said there was, after all, an NFA administrator who could oversee the country’s rice situation.
“Pag ginawa niya ng maayos trabaho niya, siguro naman walang problema,” he said.
Alvarez made the pronouncement after Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol said President Rodrigo Duterte had ordered the NFA Council abolished in a meeting with rice traders on Thursday, April 5.
But Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque clarified the NFA Council would only be transferred under the Department of Agriculture.
The decision was made after reports circulated that the NFA no longer had rice buffer stocks.
But the NFA Council, a policy-making body led by Secretary Jun Evasco, accused the NFA of creating an “artificial shortage.”