The House Quinta Committee disclosed Tuesday that it would summon major supermarkets and groceries for its probe scheduled today, Wednesday, amid reports that they are mislabeling well-milled rice as premium to sell it at prices as high as P70 per kilo.

Panel chairperson Joey Salceda, leading the investigation into rice profiteering and price manipulation, stressed that these chains have a lot of explaining to do regarding the unscrupulous scheme that allows them to earn as much as P30 per kilo.

“We disaggregated market returns and as much as 48 percent of excess returns are at the wholesale to retail level,” Salceda said.

The economist-lawmaker rejected the Bureau of Plant Industry and the Grains Retailers Confederation of the Philippines’ explanation that high prices were driven by consumers’ preference for premium rice.

“We checked the latest reference values, and even the highest quality rice from Vietnam is just P41 per kilo after duties. That doesn’t explain why prices are stubborn at P56. And that does not match actual average import prices of P31 per kilo after duties — that is not premium price,” Salceda lamented.

“So, next time I get a reason like that, the committee will be forced to remind people that there are consequences to lying under oath,” he warned.

Rice price watch

The mega-panel was formed to rigorously investigate the primary drivers of high prices of essential commodities, particularly rice.

House lawmakers suspect that the persistently high price of rice is artificial, orchestrated by cartels or through collusion between rice importers and traders. They argued that with the reported oversupply of rice and the implementation in July of Executive Order 62, which reduced rice import tariffs from 35 percent to 15 percent, markets should be flooded with rice stocks, leading to lower prices.

Salceda criticized the Department of Agriculture (DA), saying its claim of being “powerless” to address skyrocketing rice prices emboldens price manipulators to prey on Filipino consumers.

“Rice prices have become something of a death spiral. And with the DA publicly saying they are powerless under the law, price manipulators are even more emboldened to do as they please,” he said.

During last week’s hearing, DA Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. told the panel that the department lacks authority to directly address high rice prices. Laurel urged Congress to pass laws granting the DA stronger powers against price manipulation, profiteering, and other exploitative practices in the agricultural sector.

However, Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo, an economist, argued that Section 10 of the Price Act (Republic Act 7581) clearly empowers the DA to investigate, seize basic necessities, impose fines of up to P1 million, and initiate prosecutions.

Salceda added that a review of existing laws showed tools the DA can use to combat rice price manipulation.

“We found several laws that have not been fully repealed, including RA 509, which would allow the DA a wide range of powers as soon as the President declares a ‘rice emergency.’ President Quirino did this in 1948, in response to widespread hoarding in the rice market,” he averred.

He urged the DA to review and mobilize these laws to eliminate the “climate of economic impunity” in the rice market.

“We must also use all the organs and powers of the state, from post-clearance inspections of import warehouses to random inspections in markets, to remove the sense that there is no sheriff in town,” Salceda concluded.

Meanwhile, Laurel expressed interest in reinstating the National Food Authority’s regulatory functions, including its former market dominance, which was eliminated by the Rice Tariffication Law, as part of efforts to stabilize rice prices.