4 NFA workers in NegOcc affected by RatPlan
BACOLOD CITY -- Four employees of National Food Authority (NFA) Negros Occidental will be affected by the government's Rationalization (Rat) Plan to be implemented in March.
The affected employees are NFA Negros Information Officer Griselda Arceño, a radio operator, clerk and two Senior Grains Operation Officers.
Provincial offices are not so much affected unlike our central office, Arceño added.
"We are given until March 16 whether or not to leave because once the employee decided not to leave the office, he will be transferred to other fields with vacant position,” she added.
Out of four, two of them including her have already decided to avail the early retirement with corresponding benefits and special incentive package from the government.
"It is not that the employees like me will be displaced as announced in the news but we are only given options to avail of the retirement package because this is part of the streamlining of the government to abolish positions which are redundant," Arceño said.
On her part, she is serving the NFA for 28 years and it's high time to look for other job opportunities because she decided to avail the package.
"I think I've done my part anymore as public servant and I'm happy being part of NFA family," Arceño said.
Roman Sanchez, national president of NFA Employees Association, earlier questioned how NFA addresses the nation's food security problem if it deprives the food security of its own employees.
The NFA Rationalization Plan or the implementation of Executive Order No. 366 according to him will only render the agency irrelevant and inutile.
"The plan utterly disregards many important provisions of the NFA Charter and substantially altered the NFA's policy goals and objectives," he added.
It does not in any way address the so-called "financial losses or hemorrhaging" of NFA because records prove these losses are attributed to 50 percent illegal tariff imposed on rice importation, cost of rice importation and programs and projects of Malacañang being undertaken by the agency without corresponding budget. The Plan "saves" only a mere 2.3 percent on its administrative expense.
Sanchez said it contradicts PGMA's marching order to fully support our domestic farmers through massive procurement of locally produced palay instead of rice importation. It is an anti-thesis of Rice-Self Sufficiency, Self Reliance and Independence on the Staple Food. PGMA's pronouncement of "Food in Every Table" remains to be an empty political rhetoric because of the plan.