FEF bucks proposal to restore NFA power

The Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) is opposing the proposal to bring back the power of the National Food Authority (NFA) to import and sell rice to consumers, saying this would reverse the gains from the reforms in the country's rice policy.

- LOUELLA DESIDERIO

The group expressed concern over the pace at which Congress wants to amend the provisions of the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL), particularly the proposal to restore the power of the NFA to import rice and engage in rice retail to "buy high" from the palay farmers and "sell low" to the consumers.

"This proposal will reverse all the beneficial reforms in the rice policy framework achieved by the RTL and will reinstate, for the wrong reason - the short-term adverse external events not related to the RTL, the previous framework, which was historically prone to governance vulnerabilities and fiscal unsustainability," FEF said in a statement.

The group consists of top economists, former and present Cabinet secretaries and undersecretaries, leading figures in the academe, opinion-makers and prominent members in the business and finance community seeking to advance economic and political liberty, good governance, secure and well-defined property rights, market-oriented reforms and consumer protection. It believes that the RTL is the most significant reform in the country's rice policy landscape since the 1970s.