A lawmaker urged the government Thursday to divert shipments of imported rice to Central Mindanao to augment food relief operations after the United Nations’ World Food Program halted its operations in Mindanao due to the series of bombings that occurred there recently.

Sen. Francis Escudero said the government should act immediately to deflect shipments of the imported rice to Central Mindanao where at least 380,000 refugees in evacuation centers would benefit from it.

“We are faced with a humanitarian crisis that could become a disaster if this administration fails to act quickly to fill in the gap left by the UN World Food Program,” Escudero said.

“Part of the rice we have been shipping in from abroad can be diverted to the ports of General Santos and Cotabato City. This will not make a dent in the NFA’s 82-day buffer stock,” he said.

He also called on the government to ensure the safety of the staff of the UN agency that suspended its program last Wednesday following the rash of bombings in the cities of Cotabato and Iligan and Jolo, Sulu.

At least six people were killed and dozens of civilians were injured in the blast that the military suspected were done by the infamous renegade group Jemaah Islamiyah.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. also said that the temporary cessation of food relief operations in Mindanao is “disturbing.”

“That is one of the adverse effects of all these violence in Mindanao. That is something disturbing,” Pimentel said.

Both Pimentel and Escudero said the government peace panel should thresh out the resumption of talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“The ancestral domain thing for the Moros can be threshed out under a federal form of government. There is no other way of doing it. But this will need a constitutional amendment. Otherwise, you will dangle the same thing which has been rejected by them. The danger is at some future time, another group will say, we are not MILF,” Pimentel said.

“We are now reaping the results of a failed peace policy. The old ways of thinking have not worked. Perhaps it is time for the people to find novel ways to stop the bloodletting,” Escudero, for his part, said.