EDILBERTO Libatique, branch manager of the National Food Authority in western Pangasinan, said 45 bigasang bayan outlets spread in 22 municipalities and three cities in his area are now selling government rice at a cheap P18.25 per kilo.

These outlets are selling NFA rice based on their weekly allocations of 30 bags each, he said.

Dagupan City has four bigasang bayan located in its two markets.

Libatique said plans are afoot to increase the number of bigasang bayan in every town but the NFA needs to conduct inventories first based on a directive from their central office.
Libatique said they can not just readily release all their stocks of NFA rice, keeping in mind the coming lean months which may last up to October that will be marked by zero rice production.

“We can not release and release rice yet until such time that our request for 2.2 million bags of rice for the whole of Region I arrives, he said.

The rice will come from abroad, to be unloaded at Poro Point in San Fernando City to supply the rice requirements of Ilocos Region, including Abra, Baguio and Benguet.

Western Pangasinan, he said, needs 200,000 bags of rice from the 2.2 million bags intended for Region I, although the requirements is 111,000 bags.

Libatique said the current stocks in Western Pangasinan is 90,000 bags and still has more than 20,000 bags of palay now being prepared for milling.

“We need to position this volume to meet the needs of the people during the lean months,” he said.

Libatique said that as far as the importation is concerned, Region I had a share 432,000 bags from two boatloads of rice imported from Vietnam last February and March.

A third boat of imported rice that arrived last week is now being unloaded at Poro Point, consisting of 280,000 bags.

This boosted the stock of imported rice to 712,000 bags, which is still short of 1.3 million bags to fill up the requirement of the whole Region I.

A fourth vessel is however reportedly loading rice anew at the port in Vietnam, consisting of 200,000 bags he added.