To arrest the skyrocketing price of rice that has rankled ordinary consumers of additional and unwanted burden that has pummeled them with insane frequency all these years, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., issued Executive Order No. 39 putting a price cap on the selling price of rice on 2 September.

Rice retailers can only sell regular milled rice at P41 per kilogram, and well-milled rice at P45 per kilogram. Violators will be fined with a jail sentence to boot. Overseeing and monitoring the enforcement of price ceilings all over the country is a formidable if not an impossible endeavor. The government is simply not equipped with the personnel to check on rice retailers who are in the thousands, not to mention their fraudulent practice of mixing the commodity with low-quality rice to cover up for losses.

Those who bought their supply of rice in an amount much higher than the price cap certainly will not sell them to the consumers at a huge loss. They will either keep them ( which means hoarding them ) in their storage rooms until the lifting of the price cap or mix them with cheap quality kind.

The Foundation for Economic Freedom called on the government to lift or reduce import tariffs for rice from 35 percent to 10 percent to stop the surging price of rice instead of imposing a price ceiling on rice. It argued that Executive Order No. 39 placing a cap on rice would harm Filipino consumers, farmers, and the economy.

It stressed that the " price cap will harm consumers because it will drive away supply from the market, it will fuel black market on rice, cause traders to cheat on consumers by mixing inferior broken rice to regular milled rice and well-milled rice, and incentivize traders to hoard as the price ceiling is below their procurement and selling prices. "

The group postulates further that it will in particular harm the lower-income consumers because the regular milled rice will become scarce in the markets and passed on as well-milled rice by the traders. Moreover, it perorates that the farmers will suffer because the traders will be using the price cap to justify the lowering of the buying price of palay, or worse, they will stop buying from the farmers as they will lose more money owing to the high farmgate price of palay.

Lastly, the Foundation for Economic Freedom warned that the price cap will harm the entire economy as it will be ineffective in making the law of supply and demand inoperative, and even aggravate the scarce supply of rice and make it a full-blown crisis.

While the aforesaid concerns raised by the group have commonsensical validity, it cannot however be disputed that the average consumers have suffered enough by the multiple whammies caused by the continued spiraling of prices of basic commodities.

The government intervention of putting a price ceiling on this staple is necessary. It has eased considerably the load inflicted on the greater masses of our people albeit temporarily. This stop-gap measure cannot last long lest the fear of a disastrous rice shortage with the accompanying price running berserk come crashing down making for a ruinous economy.

The government has come to the succor of the rice retailers who have been affected by this program owing to the fact that the rice they are reselling has been bought above the controlled price — providing them with financial assistance of P15,000 pesos for each of them. This financial aid however cannot be sustained for an indefinite period.

Hopefully in three weeks, with the coming harvest season of palay plus the rice importation, the price of rice will stabilize, and the price cap on it lifted. The economic managers of the administration have cautioned that such price control going beyond a month could be economically disastrous.

Meanwhile, the government should flex its muscle on the hoarders and smugglers of rice by arresting, prosecuting — and clamping them in jail.