Reacting to Pres. Noynoy Aquino's allegations on excess rice purchases of the National Food Authority (NFA) resulting to rice rotting in warehouses, former Agriculture Sec. Arthur Yap told Unang Hirit, "Hindi po natin masasabing mali ang Pangulo natin. Hindi ko rin po kasi alam kung sino ang nag-feed ng data sa kanya at kung anong mga assumptions ang ginamit. Ang sinasabi ko lang po, nagugulat kami at meron naman pong dokumento, may paper trail. Hindi po yan basta-basta magagawa  Matatakot ka rin kung ikaw 'yong administrator o secretary [na sabihing] nag-guesstimate ka lang."

("I'm not saying that the president got the wrong information. I don't know who fed him the data and the assumptions used. I'm just saying we are surprised because there's a paper trail documenting the said transactions. One cannot just pad the figures. If you were the Agriculture administrator or secretary, you would be afraid to just say you 'guesstimated.'")

Yap presented documents entitled Rice and Corn Supply and Demand Outlook for the years 2007, 2009 and 2010. Based on the documents he dug up, he said the country's rice importation for all three years were thousands of metric tons less than their respective year ranges. He added that an inter-agency committee decides on rice importation so all the agencies involved would have had to collude to pad the figures.

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As the current governor of Bohol, Yap said he is ready to call for a formal inquiry to clarify the issue. He said in a report by ABS-CBNNews.com, "Who is not for searching for the truth? But sana, let's be fair." According to a Balitanghali report, the NFA has commissioned a group to oversee the systems and management audit of the alleged rice importation anomalies.

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