Please allow us to clarify the story “91,000 sacks of donated rice undelivered” (Across the Nation, 5/20/14). The rice was donated by the Algerian government to the “Yolanda” survivors and arrived in the Philippines in several batches last January and February.
While the story explains the delay in deliveries to the intended beneficiaries as due to the delay in the release of funds by the Department of Social Welfare and Development for storage and transport fees, it also quotes DSWD Region 7 assistant regional director for administration Marcial Fernandez as saying that it took them a month to get the necessary import permit for the donation from the National Food Authority (NFA) in Manila. The insinuation is that a big part of the problem was the delay in the NFA’s issuance of import permits, which alerted media people to
verify the statement with us.
Based on the records of our Grains Marketing Operations Department, the NFA import permits were granted with dispatch on the following dates: Import Permit (IP) Nos. 14-02-002 and 14-02-003 approved Jan. 27, 2014, and received by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) on Jan. 28, 2014, for shipping documents submitted to the NFA-Foreign Operations Division (FOD) on Jan. 23, 2014; IP No. 14-002-004 approved Jan. 27 and received by the BOC on Jan. 28 for shipping documents submitted to the NFA-FOD on Jan. 27, 2014; IP Nos. 14-02-011, 14-02-012 and 14-02-013 approved Feb. 13, 2014, and received by the BOC on Feb. 18, 2014, for shipping documents submitted to the NFA-FOD on Feb. 12, 2014; and IP No. 14-02-014 approved Feb. 17, 2014, and received by the BOC on Feb. 19, 2014, for shipping documents submitted Feb. 14, 2014.
—REX C. ESTOPEREZ,
department manager
for public affairs
and spokesperson,
National Food Authority