Rice prices seen going down P10-P15/kilo if…

The Department of Agriculture is “amenable” to reinstating the mandate of the National Food Authority (NFA) to sell cheaper rice directly to consumers.

During Tuesday’s House Committee on Agriculture and Food hearing, Christopher Morales, DA Undersecretary for the National Rice Program, said they were mapping out the proposal to allow the NFA to regain its market dominance, subject to Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr.’s approval.

Members of the panel stressed the urgent need to amend, if not repeal, the Rice Tariffication Law (RA 11203) amid the skyrocketing price of rice, currently pegged at P51.81 and P49.44 for local well-milled and regular milled, respectively.

Speaker Martin Romualdez expressed the belief that President Marcos would certify as urgent the overhauling of the RTL. He said the House amendments to the RTL will shrink the cost of the staple grain by at least P10 to 15 per kilo, hopefully by June.

“We will do this by having the NFA bring to the market affordable rice for all citizens that they can buy at an affordable price of P30. These are the possible amendments that we are speeding up,” Romualdez said in an ambush interview.

Early in his presidency, Marcos said he aspired to bring down the price of rice to P20 per kilo.

Romualdez said the House is set to pass the measure before Congress adjourns on 24 May. He also called on the Senate to work on similar changes to the RTL.

“The government should still be allowed to intervene in the market to study rice prices. How do you do that? Probably empower the NFA to sell cheap rice directly in the market,” Quezon City Rep. Arnan Panaligan said.

The RTL prohibits the NFA from directly selling its stocks in the markets and restricts its function to stocking palay or grain to be sold only during calamities.

The same law also removed the NFA’s powers to regulate the rice sector, license market players, inspect warehouses, and track stock movements while liberalizing rice importation.

However, Panaligan said, the RTL’s primary objective of engaging traders in a competition to drive down the cost of rice has failed to materialize.

The five-year-old RTL was enacted in February 2019 during the Duterte administration.

“We cannot disregard this. That’s rice, [which is a staple] food. It has to be addressed properly. And I believe that the right amendment to RTL is to give the government the power again to intervene [and] enter the market to stabilize the price of rice,” he said.

ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro, the proponent of House Bill 404 that aims to repeal the RTL, said that reinstating the NFA’s regulatory functions is one of the “possible solutions” to stem the rising price of rice.