LEGAZPI CITY -– The National Food Authority (NFA) regional office here has suspended the licenses of 69 NFA rice retailers for committing various offenses such as rebagging, overpricing and seeling rice without price tags.

        Edgar F. Bentulan, the new NFA regional director, told reporters that the breakdown of these violations follows: Albay, 2; Camarines Sur, 20; Camarines Norte, 19; Catanduanes, 5; Sorsogon, 23. Masbate has no reported violations as there are no NFA rice retailers there. All the NFA rice in Masbate have been allocated to food for work or food for school.

        ‘We are doing this cleansing process because we don’t want NFA rice to be sold in the black market. If possible, we don’t want to suspend our retailers because they are our partners,” Bentulan said.

        At the same time, he said the NFA regional and provincial offices will continue to monitor the activities not only of NFA rice retailers but also the commercial rice traders.

        Bentulan said that each buyer is allowed as much as three kilos of NFA rice at P18.25 per kilo but some retailers limit the sale of cheap NFA rice to only one kilo so that more people could buy NFA rice.

        The NFA, Bentulan revealed, has 14 rolling stores throughout the region. He added that the NFA regional office is also selling cheap rice at its compound.

        Asked for his position on the lifting of tariff on the importation of rice by private traders, Bentulan said “let’s wait and see for its effect.” He said that if the government allows private rice traders to import, they should pay tariff.

        On the smuggling of rice, Bentulan said it is a very remote possibility because the price of rice in the world market is very high as $747 per metric ton.

        Asked if the request of the provincial government of Albay to retail NFA rice to its constituents, Bentulan replied that the NFA has no more allocations available for LGUs.

        “We did not anticipate that the LGUs of Albay want to venture into rice retailing. So we have very little left for the LGUs,” he added.

        Before his reassignment to Bicol. Bentulan was the NFA chief of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Outgoing NFA regional director Rogelio Macutay has been reassigned to Region 12.