‘Bigas’ for food security

The Filipino word for rice grains is an acronym created and adopted by the new administration at the National Food Authority to set new directions for the agency.

Appointed last November, after a seeming revolving door of administrators in the last few years, Renan Dalisay says he wants to look beyond his term and create in this vital agency a work ethic and outlook among employees that will not only preserve its main mission of ensuring the country’s food security but also redefine its mission.

To this end, “bigas” serves a blueprint in the pursuit of this mission.

“B” is for “bigger community,” involving not just the traditional stakeholders like farmers, but also dealers and consumers, since food quality and security is our common goal.

“I” is for “internal reforms and modernization,” streamlining the NFA’s records and operations while upgrading morale and skills among its employees and hiring a younger workforce.

“G” is for “global competitiveness,” ramping up the NFA’s reputation and reach, and again raising its standards of performance and accountability.

“A” is for “available, affordable and accessible” rice, ensuring that the staple food is available to all Filipinos, especially the poor and especially during emergencies and disasters. This also means keeping a sufficient buffer stock around the country to forestall shortages.

“S” is for “sustainable development,” ensuring that reforms initiated today will last beyond the life of this administration and transform the NFA into more than a warehousing or trading agency.

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“We have to change the NFA’s dominant narrative,” says Dalisay, whose background has been in legislative work—serving as a staffer and adviser for former senator (now Secretary) Francis Pangilinan and Sen. Bam Aquino—as well as organization and advocacy.

Toward this end, he has been traversing the archipelago, visiting NFA warehouses and even sitting down to share a meal with bodegueros (warehousemen) and truckers, the better to acquaint himself with the problems they face and what they think could be better done at the NFA.

The issue at the moment, says Dalisay, is not rice importation, which used to be the dominant topic each time the NFA was mentioned, but rather the need to make rice available, at reasonable prices, to those most in need. “We still need to import rice now,” he concedes, “but only to ensure we have a good buffer stock, for at least 15 days.”

At the same time, Dalisay hopes to work with the media and other agencies in changing Filipinos’ rice consumption habits. He bewails how much rice, on average, is wasted in a day by families. “If we could only reduce the amount of rice that we throw out each day,” he says, “we will be able to conserve as much rice as needed by poor Filipinos who are now going hungry.”

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Readers may recall a number of earlier columns on the seemingly-endless saga of providing passports for Filipino citizens that are not only secure and durable but also available when promised.

It’s been a saga because, for a number of reasons, the Department of Foreign Affairs resisted bidding out the production of passports even if the previous contractor, a private entity called Oberthur, had been falling down on the job.

Finally, after Oberthur’s contract expired and a bidding of interested printers was held, the DFA signed a memorandum of agreement last Jan. 21 with APO printing, a government-owned and -controlled company.

The agreement covered the “personalization, maintenance and repair” of the current e-passport system, which in the months before APO took over the job had been breaking down and affecting the quality of the passports, resulting in delays that, APO says, were proving “detrimental to the national interest.”

One would think, having enjoyed a monopoly over passport printing for many years, and then proving inadequate when crunch time came, Oberthur would simply walk away from the problem. But it has lately been making noises about APO’s “failure” to meet with it and discuss a supposed one-year maintenance support contract, warning of possible delays in the issuance of passports.

But APO says its contract is only with the DFA and it is “under no contractual obligation to work with Oberthur.”

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APO officers maintain that the DFA chose APO to take over the contract to produce Philippine passports not just because it is a “recognized government printer,” but also because “of the merits of the solutions presented by APO and its capability to execute the solutions in its new security printing facility.”

At the same time, APO has already been printing other forms for the DFA, such as the authentication certificates with e-registry and document management system and visa labels. So its capability to undertake e-passport production is clear.

Besides, say APO officials, they have in fact met with Oberthur’s representatives on three different occasions to discuss the possibility of working together in the interim (this even if APO is not obliged to do so).

Are Oberthur’s insinuations about APO’s supposed “failings” a mere bargaining ploy to force the government printer to enter into an agreement with it? And is it using the threat of delayed delivery of passports to force APO into an unwanted partnership?

APO stresses that, having assumed operational control of the personalization facilities of the DFA, while making the necessary repairs to the old system, the efficient and proper production of passports should be well underway by March. There is thus no basis for fears of delays or compromises in passport production, it says.