THE National Food Authority (NFA) administrator and 138 other agency officials have been ordered suspended following the investigations of alleged selling rice buffer stocks, said the Office of the Ombudsman.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel, Jr. said Administrator Roderico Bioco was suspended on Monday and said he would take over as NFA Administrator in the meantime.
The second-in-command to the other suspended officials would step up and take over their duties.
Aside from Bioco, the officials ordered preventively suspended for six months were assistant administrator for operations John Robert Hermano,12 regional managers, 27 branch managers and 98 warehouse supervisors nationwide.
“The preventive suspension would allow the Ombudsman to secure all documents and other evidence relating, but not limited to, the sale of rice buffer stocks that is greatly disadvantageous to government,” Laurel said in a statement.
He gave the assurance that the NFA would continue to serve the public despite the suspensions.
“We cannot, even in the face of this investigation, allow our fellow Filipinos to be deprived of government services they deserve,” he said.
He also directed the officers-in-charge to fully cooperate with the Office of the Ombudsman and the DA’s own internal investigators and provide them with the documents they need for the probe, which could delve into transactions as far back as 2019.
“We intend to dig deep and welcome those who would come forward to assist us in probing the NFA,” he said.
The Ombudsman’s suspension orders should be seen as a “stern warning” to those resisting efforts to cleanse the departments of anomalies, he added.
The complaint against the NFA officials stemmed from an inquiry that the DA conducted into the reported sale of more than 200,000 bags of rice to in several batches earlier this year.
Ombudsman Samuel Martires said his office also launched a motu proprio investigation based on the powers it has under its charter.
In its preventive suspension order, the Office of the Ombudsman said thousands of bags of rice that were meant to be reserves in case of a shortage were allegedly sold to “predetermined traders/millers/buyers at low prices and without the approval of the NFA Council.”
“Respondents used their official functions by unilaterally selecting the commercial rice traders/millers/buyers in the disposition of NFA’s alleged aging rice stocks in utter disregard or violation of existing guidelines including the NFA Code of Corporate Governance and the Revised Operating Procedure on Sale of NFA Commodities Through Market Determined Pricing,” it said.
