What anomalies did NFA Employees Association expose?

This refers to the May 25 editorial titled “Where were they?” which drew a rejoinder from Roman Sanchez, the overstaying national president of NFA Employees Association (NFAEA). (Inquirer, 5/30/11)

First, as an NFA employee since 1977, I categorically say there has not been a single mountain of rotting rice in any NFA bodega anywhere in the Philippines. Given the size of the NFA operations, losses may occur but these are within tolerable limits in the grains industry.

As to NFAEA’s rejoinder, it appears that Sanchez is blaming everybody for the huge NFA losses, including the finance secretary and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor, but never the NFAEA, although Sanchez also sits in the NFA Council as an observer and on the NFA ManCom as regular member.

According to him, NFAEA is in the forefront of exposing irregularities in the NFA and forced the resignation of NFA administrator Romeo David. There have been more corrupt or perceived-to-be-corrupt NFA administrators after David, but did NFAEA raise a howl?

Where was NFAEA during Rep. Arthur Yap’s tenure as NFA administrator, when the NFA spent tens of millions of pesos as advance payment for the failed lease of a San Miguel building in Ortigas Center, which was supposed to be used as the NFA central office? This money the NFA never recovered. The fact is, except for David, NFAEA has been turning a blind eye to the corruption in the agency—a case of scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. In exchange for NFAEA’s silence, Sanchez has been allowed to draw his salaries and allowances even though, for the past several years, he spent 100 percent of his time on NFAEA activities, and provided with a service vehicle and a comfortable, air-conditioned NFAEA office where Sanchez and his circle can smoke cigarettes.

What anomalies is he talking about that NFAEA exposed? Who were the NFA executives administratively and criminally charged by NFAEA? Who were the whistle-blowers NFAEA assisted in filing the charges against corrupt NFA officials? Certainly not me, and I don’t know of anyone.

As early as 2001, I exposed corruption in the NFA. I filed administrative and criminal complaints, all by my lonesome, against three NFA executives and an NFA supplier before the Ombudsman. This resulted in the dismissal from the service of an NFA director and an NFA provincial manager.

Now, how did the NFA incur a P100-billion loss for the past 10 years if there was no rotting rice? Here are some answers: If you import rice from Vietnam at $500/ton, that’s about P25 per kilo. If you add the transport cost, insurance and taxes, its landed cost would be roughly P40 in GenSan. Since NFA sold rice at only P16.50/kilo to retailers, the NFA lost P23.50/kilo. At 1 million metric tons of rice imports, that would be about P23.5 billion in losses for the NFA. We can’t go on this lunacy of importing rice and then selling them at half its purchase price without sinking deeper into a s—t-hole.

—JOSE B. TAGANAHAN,

regional engineer, NFA Region 10, Cagayan de Oro City