LEGAZPI CITY -- The National Food Authority in Bicol reported that Albay province has the highest rice shortage this year owing to the series of natural calamities that hit the region last year.

        Eden Redillas, NFA provincial manager in Albay, informed the members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Albay during its regular session that Albay province has the biggest rice deficit of more than one million bags and there is a need to source out from other countries to sustain the needs of Albayanos specifically those living within the poverty line.

        “Albay has the worst rice deficit this year of about l.3 million bags due to serious effects of natural calamities and this deficiency could only be resolved through massive importation. But we could not get rice from Vietnam after they decided to halt exporting rice and we are in a quandary because we have to source out from other Asian countries,” Redillas said.

        However, provincial board member Celso Aytona said that the rice shortage in Albay might be triggered by the irregularities taking place in Tabaco City where 50 percent of wealthy Chinese traders or merchants were selling NFA rice into commercial rice through remilling and rebagging schemes.

        “Half of the rich merchants in Tabaco City are raking in big money out of the NFA rich intended for poor stricken communities through said process. There is a businessman in Tabaco who is shipping 5,000 bags of NFA rice to Mindanao outlets monthly which have been converted into commercial rice,”Aytona revealed.

        Aytona added that there was a trader whose identity he refused to divulge who offered him a large amount of money to withdraw l,000 bags of rice allocation. He said: “He asked me thrice, so I decided to check why he was unceasingly asking me to pull out these allocations and I found out that my name was being used in the illegal transactions.”

        Because of this, Aytona asked Redillas to conduct a thorough investigation to identify the traders and NFA personnel involved in the irregularities.

        Aytona’s expose’ was corroborated byVice Governor Brando Sael who according to him 50 percent of imported NFA rice from the central office is passed on for higher prices after remilling and rebagging with the connivance of NFA personnel.

        Sael pointed out that when he was with the defunct Economic Intelligence Investigation Bureau they learned that majority of the rice imported by the NFA went to Chinese traders.

        “We’re asking the NFA officials to conduct an investigation to uncover these irregularities in Tabaco,” Sael said.

        To appease the provincial board members here, Redillas quickly replied that she would look into the reported anomalies.

        Presently, there are 93,000 bags available for eleven-day requirement in albay provice but Redillas said that her office is expecting l50,000 bags from Vietnam and 280,000 bags of rice from Thailand, part of the 250,000 metric tons of NFA imported rice.

        Of these 250,000 metric tons, Bicol would have 500,000 bags of rice that would be sufficient to cover rice supply up to the end of this year.