The San Juan City government has kicked off on Monday, Feb. 24, the sale of the newly-purchased National Food Authority (NFA) rice worth P33 per kilo to San Juaneños under the Food Security Emergency program of the national government launched to stabilize the skyrocketing prices of rice.

San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora and Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. spearheaded the event held at the San Juan City Hall where the latter underscored the importance of providing residents with affordable food choices.

"Providing affordable rice to our residents is a priority for the City Government of San Juan. Through this program, we are ensuring that our constituents have access to quality food at a low price, especially in these challenging times," Zamora said.

"To help our constituents even more, San Juan City is shouldering all the costs for hauling, transport, logistics, and other expenses associated with selling the rice. This is our way of assisting our residents and ensuring they have access to affordable food. We got them from the NFA at P1,650 and sell them to our constituents at P1,650 as well so as not to burden our people with additional expenses. The city government will shoulder all of these expenses for them," he added.

The city government has committed to an initial 1,000 sacks, with provisions to order more should the demand increase.

To ensure an orderly process, a registration table set up at the San Juan City Hall lobby on Feb. 20 will be open Mondays to Fridays from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. for residents to register and to purchase rice.

The national government declared a Food Security Emergency in response to fluctuating rice prices and supply concerns.

The NFA said it has sold around 300,000 bags of aging rice to local government units (LGUs) in January, followed by another 400,000 bags of aging rice to be sold this month. Both stocks are part of the 700,000 bags of rice in the agency's storage facilities.

“This is nationwide stocks. Pero ang location naman niyan is NCR (National Capital Region) and nearby NCR [areas]," NFA Administrator Larry Lacson said, explaining that the move is in line with Republic Act No. 12078, which amended RA 11203 or the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL), stating that rice stored for more than two months can now be disposed of before further aging.

“Dahil sa amended RTL, dito po nakasaad na pagtungtong po ng dalawang buwan at isang araw ng aming bigas ay pwede na pong i-dispose bago pa po mag-age. Binigyan po kami ng kapangyarihan para i-dispose (Because of the amended RTL, it is stated that once our rice reaches two months and one day, it can already be disposed of before it ages further. We have been given the authority to dispose of it),” he explained.

This program, facilitated by the DA, ensures that staple food remains accessible to Filipino families.