The government on Tuesday said it would be transparent in the use of P10-billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, which is aimed at helping farmers who would be hurt by the liberalization of rice imports.
Three days after President Rodrigo Duterte signed the rice tariffication bill into law, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo sought to allay farmers’ fears that the RCEF would fall into corrupt hands, like the fertilizer fund did in 2004.
“Good governance is the hallmark of the Duterte administration and the President has zero tolerance against corruption and wastage of taxpayers’ money. We continue to exercise accountability and transparency in all levels of the bureaucracy,” Panelo said in a statement.
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Panelo said the Agriculture secretary will oversee the proper and responsible use of the rice fund.
“The Department of Agriculture, in consultation with farmers’ cooperatives and organizations as well as local government units, shall also validate and update the master list of eligible beneficiaries, which include farmers, farm workers, rice cooperatives and associations,” he said.
He added that the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization will also conduct a periodic review of the rice fund.
On Friday, the President signed RA No. 11203, lifting the import limits and quantitative restrictions on rice and instead imposes tariffs on the staple.
Two leftist party-list lawmakers on Tuesday hit the enactment of the Rice Tariffication Act, saying it will not solve the problem of hunger.
ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio and France Castro said the millions of farmers who will be affected by the adverse effects of the law will be included in the list of hungry people.
Tinio and Castro said the law will abandon 3.6 million rice farmers and rice farm workers, their families and the Filipino people through heavy importation of the country’s primary agricultural product and staple food.
“The enactment of the Rice Tariffication law will be another broken promise by the Duterte administration as this measure will only worsen poverty and hunger and will only cater to monopoly traders whose primary mission in life is to profit,” Tinio said. “This measure will not solve the never-ending rice crisis in the country; rather it would make us a rice-consuming country that is import dependent begging for cheaper rice.”
Tinio said the Rice Tariffication Act was the Duterte administration’s purported solution to the record high inflation rates.
“Unfortunately, this measure will not solve the continuing rice crisis and high inflation and will only lead to bigger and more problems in the future for our fellow Filipinos, especially rice farmers and workers,” Castro said.
“The Duterte administration has been implementing policies that would destroy and kill agricultural industries while turning its back on the clamor of the Filipino peasants for genuine agrarian reform and government support to help farmers increase their production without burying them in a lifetime of debt,” she said. “Instead of helping our own farmers, the government is instead running away from its responsibility to aid farmers and consumers.”
Castro said there was no guarantee that rice tarifficaiton would lower the prices of rice in the market, but would definitely decimate the rice industry.
Instead of having the rice tariffication enacted, Tinio said the government must focus on self-sufficiency.
“Dependence on imports would only make the country forevermore vulnerable to price manipulation and will destroy the already suffering agricultural industry despite being an agricultural country.
“Our peasants have long clamored for genuine agrarian reform, and government subsidy on the production of our agricultural products, it is about time that our government should listen and hear their calls,” Tinio said.
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