ILOILO CITY — The National Food Authority (NFA) is hoping to complete the unloading here of 170,000 bags of imported rice from Thailand within five days.
To date, 114,931 bags have already been unloaded since evening of September 21.
The imported rice, onboard M/V Dong Phu, arrived at the International Commercial Port Complex (ICPC) in Barangay Loboc, Lapuz on September 20, said Herrielle V. Jumagbas, acting Iloilo provincial manager, in an interview Thursday.
The imported rice was intended for four provinces with Aklan and Antique each having 22,000 bags, Capiz — 29,000, and Iloilo and Guimaras with 97,000 bags. Each bag contains 50 kilograms.
Jumagbas said the imported rice are brought to their Kabasaka Triplex Warehouse in Jaro district and at the Dumangas Grains Center in Dumangas, Iloilo and shipped to other provincial offices.
“The long-grain rice are 25 percent broken and will be sold at PHP27.00 in the market,” she said.
With the new stocks, it is expected that it can help bring down prices of rice in the market by PHP1 to PHP2 per kilogram.
Of the available stocks, retailers in markets can get 20 bags per week per outlet and 10 bags for those outside of the market.
In Iloilo, NFA has 216 retailers; 103 are inside the market.
NFA releases around 3, 190 bags for the markets every week.
She added that NFA rice sells fast but they put a limit of five kilos per bag per person to be able to accommodate a larger number of clients.
Part of the stocks goes to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
Meanwhile, the NFA Antique has received an initial 5,000 bags as of September 23, according to Antique provincial manager Marianito B. Bejemino.
The 3,000 bags were delivered to Culasi warehouse in northern Antique on Sept 23 and 2,000 bags to the NFA San Jose de Buenavista warehouse the next day.
Of the 22,000 bags for Antique, about 3,000 bags will be for the Supplemental Feeding Program of the DSWD for day-care children while the rest will be distributed to some 70 accredited rice retailers. (Perla Lena with reports from Annabel J. Petinglay/PNA)
