NFA moved back to DA; Evasco removed as NFA Council chair
Published Apr 17, 2018 02:35 pm
By Genalyn Kabiling
President Duterte has approved major changes in the National Food Authority (NFA), including removing Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. as chairman of the NFA Council and transferring the agency back to the Department of Agriculture (DA).
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte looks at the document shown by Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. prior to the start of the 10th Cabinet meeting at the State Dining Room in Malacañan Palace on January 9, 2017.
(ACE MORANDANTE/Presidential Photo / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO) The President also created a new Palace committee to supervise and implement the rice importation program, which would now be carried out through government-to-government (G2G) scheme. The latest directives of the President were reached during the NFA Council meeting in Malacañang last Monday amid government efforts to boost the country's rice supply. “The NFA, the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), and the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority (FPA) will be made attached agencies of the Department of Agriculture” Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said. The return of the three agencies to the DA was confirmed by Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol on Tuesday. “Because the NFA is now under the Department of Agriculture anew, Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco will no longer be part of the NFA Council,” he said during the press conference in Boracay. In returning the three agencies to the DA, Roque explained that Duterte did not want to be “saddled with too many agencies” under the Office of the President. An executive order on the return of these agencies to the DA will be issued soon. The NFA, PCA, FPA, and the National Irrigation Administration were moved from the DA to the Office of the President in 2014 by then President Benigno Aquino III who issued Executive Order No. 165. In 2016, the NFA was placed under the supervision and control of Evasco through Executive Order No. 1 issued by Duterte. Asked about the replacement of Evasco in the NFA Council, Roque said it was prudent to wait for the President’s EO. Evasco immediately accepted the President's decision and thanked him for the opportunity to chair the NFA council for the past one and a half year. “I have full respect with the decision of the President given the encompassing nature and impact of the National Food Authority on the Filipino people and the farmers,” Evasco said in a statement read by Roque. Evasco said he has put in place several policy guidelines to facilitate "more transparent, competitive, inclusive and accountable” system of procurement and distribution of NFA rice. He also highlighted that he has never been investigated or charged for corruption and other anomaly in public service. Evasco likewise expressed hopes that next NFA council chair to continue the reforms in the agency to prevent a repeat of the corruption and debt-ridden practices of the past. “With the President's decision to transfer the governance to the next council chair, I believe that NFA can now move forward towards ensuring that corrupt, exclusive and debt-ridden practices during the past administrations will not reign in the next transactions to pass,” he said. Duterte also approved a reorganization of the NFA Council, allowing the Department of Social Welfare and Development to replace the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) in the policy-making body. The NFA reorganization came amid the reported feud between Evasco and NFA Administrator Jason Aquino over their differences in the mode of rice importation, buying price for palay, among others. The NFA problem all started when the food agency saw its stocks fully depleted recently after failing to procure rice from Filipino farmers as well as conduct importation – which was purposely denied by the NFA Council, citing abundance in local supply. Evasco then continuously argued that the country doesn't need to import, with Piñol backing him up. The DA, for several times, dismissed that the country is experiencing some sort of rice shortage, citing that production last year even grew by 9.36 percent to 19.3 million metric tons (MT), the highest rice production and annual growth since 1999. Under the law, the NFA is required to have at least 15-day buffer stock at any given time and 30-day buffer stock during lean season. Eventually, as NFA failed to intensify its local procurement and was largely banking on importation, the public was left at the mercy of expensive commercial rice with completely no cheaper government rice in the market. Duterte was then forced to enter the picture and ordered the immediate importation of 250,000 MT of rice. (With a report from Madelaine Miraflor)
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte looks at the document shown by Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. prior to the start of the 10th Cabinet meeting at the State Dining Room in Malacañan Palace on January 9, 2017.(ACE MORANDANTE/Presidential Photo / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO) The President also created a new Palace committee to supervise and implement the rice importation program, which would now be carried out through government-to-government (G2G) scheme. The latest directives of the President were reached during the NFA Council meeting in Malacañang last Monday amid government efforts to boost the country's rice supply. “The NFA, the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), and the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority (FPA) will be made attached agencies of the Department of Agriculture” Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said. The return of the three agencies to the DA was confirmed by Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol on Tuesday. “Because the NFA is now under the Department of Agriculture anew, Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco will no longer be part of the NFA Council,” he said during the press conference in Boracay. In returning the three agencies to the DA, Roque explained that Duterte did not want to be “saddled with too many agencies” under the Office of the President. An executive order on the return of these agencies to the DA will be issued soon. The NFA, PCA, FPA, and the National Irrigation Administration were moved from the DA to the Office of the President in 2014 by then President Benigno Aquino III who issued Executive Order No. 165. In 2016, the NFA was placed under the supervision and control of Evasco through Executive Order No. 1 issued by Duterte. Asked about the replacement of Evasco in the NFA Council, Roque said it was prudent to wait for the President’s EO. Evasco immediately accepted the President's decision and thanked him for the opportunity to chair the NFA council for the past one and a half year. “I have full respect with the decision of the President given the encompassing nature and impact of the National Food Authority on the Filipino people and the farmers,” Evasco said in a statement read by Roque. Evasco said he has put in place several policy guidelines to facilitate "more transparent, competitive, inclusive and accountable” system of procurement and distribution of NFA rice. He also highlighted that he has never been investigated or charged for corruption and other anomaly in public service. Evasco likewise expressed hopes that next NFA council chair to continue the reforms in the agency to prevent a repeat of the corruption and debt-ridden practices of the past. “With the President's decision to transfer the governance to the next council chair, I believe that NFA can now move forward towards ensuring that corrupt, exclusive and debt-ridden practices during the past administrations will not reign in the next transactions to pass,” he said. Duterte also approved a reorganization of the NFA Council, allowing the Department of Social Welfare and Development to replace the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) in the policy-making body. The NFA reorganization came amid the reported feud between Evasco and NFA Administrator Jason Aquino over their differences in the mode of rice importation, buying price for palay, among others. The NFA problem all started when the food agency saw its stocks fully depleted recently after failing to procure rice from Filipino farmers as well as conduct importation – which was purposely denied by the NFA Council, citing abundance in local supply. Evasco then continuously argued that the country doesn't need to import, with Piñol backing him up. The DA, for several times, dismissed that the country is experiencing some sort of rice shortage, citing that production last year even grew by 9.36 percent to 19.3 million metric tons (MT), the highest rice production and annual growth since 1999. Under the law, the NFA is required to have at least 15-day buffer stock at any given time and 30-day buffer stock during lean season. Eventually, as NFA failed to intensify its local procurement and was largely banking on importation, the public was left at the mercy of expensive commercial rice with completely no cheaper government rice in the market. Duterte was then forced to enter the picture and ordered the immediate importation of 250,000 MT of rice. (With a report from Madelaine Miraflor)