A legislator on Tuesday pushed for the enactment of a measure authorizing the use of the rice subsidy provided to beneficiaries under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) through the national budget for the massive purchase of palay from local farmers.
Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte said Congress could help the country’s beleaguered rice farmers by reversing the continued plunge in farm gate prices of palay by enacting the bill that would let Government buy this year a sizable volume of the grain from local growers for use in the multibillion-peso annual rice subsidy program for low-income families.
“The administration’s goal of eradicating extreme poverty in the country by 2040, and lowering poverty incidence to just 11 percent by 2022 would get a significant boost if rural incomes go up by way of higher farmgate prices of palay, given that most Filipinos living below the poverty line live in the countryside,” Villafuerte of Camarines Sur’s Second District said.
Villafuerte, author of House Bill 5583, appealed to his colleagues at the Lower House as well as senators to consider what he described as “farmer-friendly proposal.”
HB 5583 has been referred to the House committee on appropriations, chaired by Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, for its deliberation and approval.
Under the 4Ps program of the DSWD, the beneficiaries receive a monthly subsidy amounting to P600 or equivalent to 20 kilos of rice.
This is on top of the P300 cash assistance they receive per month.
The bill mandates the DSWD, in coordination with the National Food Authority (NFA) and the Department of Agriculture (DA), to buy palay from local farmers, and distribute actual kilos of rice as subsidy, instead of cash, to 4Ps beneficiaries.
Villafuerte said that under the 2019 GAA, the allocation for rice subsidy amounts to P28.51 billion, and the same amount has been allocated for 2020.
He pointed out that President Duterte’s enactment of Republic Act 11203 or the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) has slashed the retail cost to a three-year low of P36.56 per kilo of regular-milled rice from the year-ago rate of P41.88, according to Philippine Statistics Authority data.
The cost of well-milled rice likewise fell to P41.44 per kilo from last year’s P45.65 rate.
Lower rice prices, in turn, pulled down headline inflation to its lowest level under the Duterte presidency, as it fell to 0.8% in October from a peak of 6.7 percent in 2018.
However, the liberalization of rice imports has led to a temporary hiccup during this transition phase, which is the softening of farm gate prices of palay.
Latest PSA data showed that as of end-December 2019, palay was sold at an average of P15.63 a kilo, down 19 percent from the buying average of P18.53 over the 2015-2017 period and lower than the P19.40 rate last
But Villafuerte said local palay growers are expected to recover soon from this temporary transition challenge as the government has started rolling out an array of interventions such as easy and cheap credit along with the provision of farm machinery and high-yield seeds to boost farmers’ productivity, by way of the RTL-established annual P10-billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF).