The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) today slammed Agriculture Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Noel Reyes’s claim yesterday that the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) centralized procurement influenced dropped in fertilizer prices in the Philippines as preposterous.

According to Antonio “Ka Tonying” Flores, UMA’s chairperson pegging the procurement price at the prevailing retail prices of fertilizer in the Philippines is flawed. No level headed person whether in the private or public sector would want to buy bulk orders based on the prevailing retail prices. This should be based on wholesale prices which is very much cheaper to acquire.

ASEC Noel Reyes claimed that the DA influenced the lowering of prices because the average price of urea fertilizer this June 2020 is P978 per bag compared to P,1139 per bag in June 2019. He also mentioned that the price of such a commodity is determined by the price of oil in the world market but never answered the question of Ka Tonying on how much is its wholesale price.

Ka Tonying added that in UMA’s research on index mundi, the average price of a 50 kg. bag of urea in the world market from April 2019 – April 2020 was P606. The lowest was in February 2020 at P544.08 and the highest was at P683.20 in August 2019.

If we add the freight cost based on the data of S&P Global Platts which is US$10 of 1 per metric ton like sugar from Thailand to the Philippines, the landed cost of the average price of urea during that one year period would just be P631 per bag.

The DA ASEC cannot even explain why its P1,000 average procurement price of urea fertilizer is higher than the average prevailing retail price of urea now in the market is just P850.

It is very clear according to Ka Tonying that the DA bought the urea fertilizer at a much higher price than the prevailing wholesale prices of these in the world market.

UMA is supporting the Makabayan bloc’s House Resolution 992 directing the House committees on agriculture and food and good government and public accountability to look into the matter.

At the same time, it is studying the possibility of filing corruption charges against the DA in the Ombudsman together with other national peasant organizations.

Below is the data from index mundi on the wholesale prices of urea fertilizer in the world market in Philippine pesos.