The government is playing with fire in using rice prices as a political tool to recover public support.

Voters have long awaited the P20 per kilo rice pledge, which the administration recently said “we’re starting to make happen” with the subsidized P20/kilo rice campaign.

Sonny Africa of Ibon Foundation said the desperate move was triggered by recent surveys that showed a rise in hunger among Filipinos, which is a precursor to unrest.

Hunger more than doubled, from 2.9 million or 11.6 percent of families in June 2022 to 7.5 million or 27.2 percent as of March 2025, according to the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

The Band-aid solution is apparent since support to farmers to raise output is waning.

Africa said farmers’ hopes were raised when the government pledged to increase the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) by P20 billion annually after Republic Act 12078 was enacted on 9 December 2024.

“Three weeks later, a provision in the budget for an additional P5 billion for RCEF, which funds programs that benefit rice farmers, was vetoed “apparently to make room for the pork barrel in the 2025 budget.”

The mechanics of the P20/kilo rice scheme are not even clear yet, which Africa said tends to support the view that it was hastily drawn.

The government is throwing money into the fire to achieve the impossible and lessen the outcry over the budget. The current market price used to compute the subsidy was reduced to between P32 and P33 per kilo, which does not reflect the actual situation.

The national government and local government units will shoulder the price difference. The program set to be launched in the Visayas will sell at most 10 kilos per week per indigent or low-income family.

The budget to launch the program is estimated at P3.5 billion to P4.5 billion.

Africa then did the maths.

The Visayas has 900,886 poor families, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s latest Listahanan 3.

If the budget is only for the Visayas, the cheap rice can be sustained for about 20 weeks or five months, which would leave over 4.1 million Visayan families still paying the regular, expensive prices for rice.

Listahanan 3 identifies 5.6 million low-income families nationwide. If the P4.5-billion budget will cover all the marginalized households, the subsidy will last a little over three weeks or about 22 days.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), however, reported that some 20.1 million households, or nearly three-fourths of all households or 74.4 percent, do not have any savings.

If applied to this group, the subsidy will not last more than a week, even less if logistical expenses are considered.

Africa said the government would be better off if it gave the people an accurate picture of the campaign, such as committing to “P20/kilo rice for all 27 million Filipino families for five days” or “P20/kilo rice for 5.6 million poor families for three weeks,” instead of raising hopes for a long-term solution.

Using the National Food Authority’s 358,000 metric ton buffer stock for the gimmick compromises food security, which has become even more critical given the US-driven uncertainties in the global trading system.

“Rice and other food prices can be sustainably lowered but only with a long-term strategy of steady protection and subsidies for small farmers and domestic agriculture,” according to Africa.

He warned that things could backfire since the promise of cheap rice runs counter to the government’s efforts in the farm sector in the past.

The farmers suffered then and a backlash will lead traders to refer to the past program to slash farm gate prices.