Political will test

The rice cartel causing the price problems will fall only one way, which is by applying political will, since it has been proven, not once, that the manipulators are well known to the authorities.

In the previous administration, former President Rodrigo Duterte even had the phone numbers of the scalawags to periodically warn them.

In a National Security Council meeting, for instance, Duterte called up someone who received the worst scolding ever heard from the president.

The person on the other end was the supposed head of the Manila rice cartel who dictated the prices and supply of the staple grain.

Duterte then directed the National Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group to go after the members of the syndicate, but until today neither agency has produced a single arrest.

In one of his State of the Nation Addresses, Duterte indicated that it was not a secret who the members of the rice mafia were.

"I now ask all the rice hoarders, cartels and their protectors, you know that I know who you are: stop messing with the people," Duterte said.

Other instances that proved the government knew the identities of their supposed prey were the several congressional probes where specific mention was made of the names of the rice gang.

The Senate committee on agriculture had established the existence of the cartel and its intrusion into the National Food Authority but nothing happened after the inquiry. Some 13 trading firms were identified as dominating the rice business in Metro Manila.

The panel said the firms hoarded rice from the NFA and mixed it with other rice varieties before these were resold.

An instance that indicted the government as being in collusion with the cartel was during the tenure of the detained Leila de Lima as justice secretary, in the investigation of ringleader David Tan alias Davidson Bangayan.

Bangayan and his cohorts were accused of establishing a scheme to recruit rice farmers and organize them "to acquire substantial importation allocations."

In 2014, the Senate initiated a probe into rice smuggling and the existence of a grains cartel that focused on Bangayan whose operations were based in Mindanao.

Before the 2016 polls, De Lima, who was gunning for a Senate seat, returned the smuggling case against Bangayan to the NBI for further case buildup. De Lima's excuse was that the NBI needed to gather more evidence against Bangayan.

"We have to make sure it meets the probable cause threshold. When we evaluated Bangayan's case, it was still not enough," she said when asked about her actions.

Most officials, businessmen and even rice retailers in Mindanao knew who the rice smuggling king was, yet De Lima said the NBI needed to prove his identity.

Bangayan then was very confident about not being charged as he appeared at the Senate hearing, which even resulted in an overnight detention as he was being elusive in responding to the senators' questions.

The National Bureau of Investigation, an agency under the Department of Justice, ordered Bangayan's arrest only after evidence in a libel case obtained by then Senate minority leader Juan Ponce Enrile was presented before the Senate committee on agriculture. The case was against businessman Jess Arranza in which Bangayan admitted that he was David Tan.

Before Bangayan's appearance in the Senate, he had met with De Lima to deny that he was Tan.

His first NBI arrest papers even bore the clarification, "Davidson Bangayan who is not David Tan," even though many in the business community were willing to testify that Bangayan was David Tan.

Duterte, then Davao City mayor, was among those who  vouched that Bangayan and Tan were the same person.

Still, the NBI released Bangayan on the absurd reason that it could not establish his identity.

An infuriated Duterte then demanded the resignation of De Lima as justice secretary for releasing Bangayan.

The charade continued as Bangayan was rearrested on the ridiculous charge of electricity pilferage.

It was the height of absurdity since it meant that Meralco was able to positively identify Bangayan which the NBI failed to do.

The perpetual zarzuela of government vowing to run after the rice cartel when prices kick up will have to stop — which will happen only when the members of the rice mafia are prosecuted.