The government’s plan to declare a food security emergency to address the persistently high rice prices will remain a mere stopgap solution unless the proposed “Cheaper Rice Act” is enacted into law, a lawmaker said Monday.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is set to announce a food security emergency, with the decision coming on Wednesday. Under the amended Rice Tariffication Law, a food security emergency can only be declared if there is a supply shortage or an extraordinary increase in the cost of rice.

A food security emergency will allow the National Food Authority (NFA) to release its buffer stocks to stabilize the cost of the staple grain in areas with spiking retail prices.

According to Agri Rep. Wilbert Lee, this effort, however, will remain temporary and will not completely address the underlying cause driving the persistently high prices of rice. He said that farmers need aggressive assistance from the government to boost their rice production and achieve a steady supply and price.

“If only local farmers had full support [from the government], there would be no need to declare a food security emergency. With the enactment of these bills, we believe that the price of rice will be lowered until the government’s goal of P20 per kilo is achieved,” the lawmaker stated in Filipino.

Lee was referring to the “Cheaper Rice Act” (House Bill 9020), which has been pending at the committee level for more than a year since it was filed in September 2023.

If passed into law, the DA and other government agencies concerned will be mandated to buy local palay at an additional P5 to P10 above the prevailing farmgate prices. This “price subsidy” program aims to increase the income of local farmers and encourage them to increase their palay output.

DA Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa, over the weekend, made it clear that the looming declaration of a food security emergency was prompted solely by an “extraordinary increase in price” and not the lack of supply of the staple grain.

The price of rice remains drastically high despite the enforcement in July of Executive Order 62, which reduced the tariff on rice imports from 35 percent to 15 percent, as well as declining global rice costs and excess supply in the country.

The DA’s latest monitoring showed that the retail price of imported special rice has reached as high as P64 per kilo, while imported premium rice was still pegged at P60 per kilo. Imported well-milled rice and imported regular-milled rice also remain high at P54 and P48 per kilo, respectively.

These figures are still far from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s target of lowering the price of the staple grain to P20 per kilogram.

Akbayan Rep. Perci Cendaña pointed to cartels as causing the price crisis, accusing them of artificially inflating rice prices. He stressed that the government must take action against those responsible for manipulating the distribution of the commodity, which drives up prices.

“We need to teach these greedy, exploitative businessmen a lesson — jail time. If we don’t show our teeth, we’ll be stuck in a loophole of food security emergencies,” he said.

Members of the House Quinta Committee, which is investigating the high prices of rice and other agricultural products, are certain that rice importers are colluding with traders, resulting in persistently high rice prices.

The committee is set to hold another investigation in the coming weeks.