ILOILO CITY — The National Food Authority (NFA) is urging consumers to make use of its “Kontra Abuso” hotlines available in its various provincial offices to air their complaints and report violations.
The NFA, through the hotlines, would like to engage public participations in monitoring the presence of NFA rice in the market, said Lalaine Doronila, Information Officer III of NFA Regional Office in Western Visayas.
“This is not the responsibility of the NFA alone. We would like our consumers to help us,” she said.
Doronila, in an interview Thursday, said they would like to know if there are illegal grains trading such as selling of
NFA at a higher price instead of the fixed PHP27 per kilogram; or hoarding of stocks, among others.
She said whatever stocks that are being released by the NFA to their accredited retailers should be made available to the consuming public.
As a form of monitoring, NFA accredited rice outlets are required to have a registration list for the buying public to register the volume of rice that they purchased.
The hotlines are 0945-4734539 for Aklan; 0927-9515433 for Antique; 0966-7258765 for Capiz; 0927-9515433 for Negros Occidental; 0966-7329561 for Iloilo and 0905-4391235 for NFA regional office.
These numbers are open 24/7, Doronila said. They can send their complaints through calls and texts. It can be anonymous provided they report the true situation.
Doronila said so far, the Iloilo provincial office has received two complaints through text messaging.
These included the lack of available NFA rice in one accredited outlet in Calinog, Iloilo. Another complaint was that NFA rice was mixed with commercial rice.
These complaints were already addressed, she said.
Western Visayas was allocated 80,000 bags of imported rice during the first importation in July.
Of the allocation, the Department of Social Welfare and Development was apportioned 8, 125 bags for its buffer stocks in times of calamity and 32, 862 bags for the supplemental feeding program in the region (except Iloilo City and Negros Occidental); 1,114 bags for the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and 1,423 bags for local government units.
The release to accredited retailers is left to the discretion of the provincial manager, depending on the availability of supply in the province.
At present NFA has 791 accredited retailers in Western Visayas. (Perla Lena/PNA)
