(Eagle News)– “Ignore” the National Food Authority Council and push through with rice importation.
This was the directive of President Rodrigo Duterte to NFA administrator Jason Aquino, who has been at loggerheads with the policymaking body of the NFA over how to import the rice.
The President said in a speech on Thursday, April 6, that he gave such a directive to assuage the public’s fears of a rice shortage.
The NFA has said there was a shortage in their stock rice but the NFA Council led by Secretary Jun Evasco has accused the agency’s officials of “muddling the issue” and “creating panic” instead.
He then admitted that NFA rice stocks would last 0.35 of a day.
Rice traders who met President Duterte on Thursday meanwhile agreed to bring down their rice in the market to P39/kilogram.