Pres. Digong should kill those corrupt NFA officials

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

Do you know that a poor Filipino nuclear family of seven, yes seven because the poor here ironically breed like rabbit, as based on my conversation with some destitutes, contend themselves with a kilo of rice that they mixed with patis (salted fish sauce) or bagoong (anchovies), HesusMariaHusef, to survive the daily grind?

Because of abject poverty many of them forget what viand is all about. Their grown up children could not even spell V-I-A-N-D because malnutrition sapped out their intellectual ability.

When then presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte stumped the provinces and cities, the great unwashed saw the light of hope at the other end of the tunnel when the firebrand candidate promised a P15 kilos of rice to the poor (manilatimes.net June 17, 2016).

When Duterte failed to make true his promise, the poor put their trust on the P27 a kilo of the staple courtesy of stocks from the government run National Food Authority.

But that price is still a pipe dream son of a gun! 

Despite the bumper harvest from the farmers and the available funds from the National Food Authority to buy a kilo of palay at P17, the P27 a kilo of rice in the market is still elusive, thanks but no thanks to the miscreants at the NFA who conspired with the wheeler dealing traders by mixing the cheap staple and sell it from P37 to P45 a kilo.

 The impoverished who trembled with starvation at corner could not comprehend what hit them.

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What they know, the prices of bagoong and patis are unscathed by the manipulation. But they could not eat alone one of these condiments.

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Recently, I saw on a prime time television news members of the National Bureau of Investigation seizing three hundreds bags full of NFA rice being repacked to commercial sacks at a warehouse in General Santos City, this incident collaborated my suspicion about a conspiracy to make a fast buck between NFA officials and traders.

ILLEGAL - An operative of the National Bureau of Investigation inspects three hundred sacks of rice in a warehouse in General Santos City where the staples from the National Food Authority intended for the poor were illegally transferred to another bags of a trader so he can sell them at a higher price. 

When I posted at Face Book my fury of this shenanigan, some friends messages me on my inbox and provided me with information.

One of my sources told me that rice traders in Pangasinan bought a 25 kilogram of the staple in a sack for P750 in an NFA warehouse. A trader sells the same bag with rice at P900 to P950.

So I mentally computed that if the NFA bought that kilo of rice at P17 from the farmer and sell it for P22 so the government coffer recoup its expenses and earn a little, what easy bucks for these corrupt officials selling it at P30 and pocketing P8 a kilo. And we are not talking here about 100 kilos, we are talking here about countless metric tons of kilos, Holy Casserole and Guacamole, being covertly sold all over the country that saw many NFA brass and conspiring traders, who sold a kilo between P37 to 45, filthy rich at the expense of the poor.

Where are your conscience greedy evildoers?

If Duterte crowed recently in Tarlac City that two “narcotics coddling” mayors have been murdered and he waits for the return of Iloilo City Mayor Jeb Mabilog so he can order him killed too, why not the president orders the killing through a liquidation squad of some of these NFA officials whose repugnant offenses are at par with the illegal drug peddlers.

Depriving the poor with cheap staple means, these avaricious public officials and merchants gradually kill them, too just like the narcos who gradually murder the junkies.

I'm calling mga ka-DDS Tatay Digong, send your dogs of war to hunt these scoundrels.

 (You can read my selected columns at mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)