By Meanne Corvera
Eagle News Service
The National Food Authority is under fire from some legislators following the alleged rice crisis in Zamboanga that saw a whopping increase in the prices of the staple food.
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said the NFA as a whole “has become a liability to the government,” noting the drop in its revenues “every year.”
He said that from the P29.3 billion it earned in 2016, its earnings dropped to P17.93 billion in 2016.
He noted that the NFA was one of the biggest recipients of subsidies provided to government-owned and -controlled corporations in June 2018, at P5.2 billion.
Senator Kiko Pangilinan, for his part, said the “rice crisis” in Zamboanga was a “combination of both corruption and incompetence by top government officials in cahoots.”
Davao Rep. Karlo Nograles said it was also possible businessmen were manipulating rice prices in Zamboanga.
He said he would call for a House inquiry into the same, as he called on the NFA to release the 6,000 tons of rice it supposedly has in Zamboanga to help arrest the increase of rice prices in the market.