Joining the growing call for aid for farmers affected by the Rice Tariffication Law, opposition lawmakers on Wednesday filed a joint resolution authorizing the use of the unappropriated Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund and tariffs collected under the law as direct emergency cash assistance.
“We have to immediately switch gears now that it is evident that the RCEF, as it is, is not enough to cushion the effects of the Rice Tariffication Law,” one of the members of the House minority bloc, Rep. Stella Quimbo of Marikina City, said.
“What our farmers need is immediate cash assistance, not loans that will only add to the burden of the small holder farmers.”
Meanwhile, Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the National Food Authority will buy unmilled rice from local farmers at a higher price.
Dar said the government will buy palay with 14 percent moisture content at P19 per kilo against the farmgate price of P17.62 per kilo in the second week of August.
He said this year’s tariffs on further rice importation could be raised to help rice farmers cope with the drop in the prices of palay.
Saying the “current rice market anomalies were all about geographical monopolies and economic sabotage to farmers and to consumers, a legislator from the Bicol region is seeking legal redress against abusive rice traders.
In an aide memoir couched in technocratic language that he sent to President Rodrigo Duterte, Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and House Majority Leader Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, said: “Rice liberalization, while curing certain inefficiencies in the rice trade sector, most notably the shortfall between supply and demand, has not addressed chronic inequities in the bargaining power between rice farmers and rice traders.”
At the Sept. 3 Senate hearing, it was revealed that P4 billion was still left of the RCEF available for release and P9.19 billion had been collected by the Bureau of Customs as tariff revenues from rice importation.
“We see no reason why we can’t use this P13 billion to immediately give aid to our farmers who need it the most. There is no point to earning from imports if our people won’t benefit from it, especially the most affected, said Quimbo.
As rice farmers complained of the low selling price of palay, Quimbo, a former official of the Philippine Competition Commission, called on the PCC to probe rice millers and traders for possible violation of the Philippine Competition Act by abusing farmers through “unfair” and “severe” reduction of palay prices.
A counterpart joint resolution was filed in the Senate on Sept. 5, authored by Senator Francis Pangilinan, vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food and former food security undersecretary. With Rio N. Araja