Too hot to handle

“The only perceivable action taken by any agency was that of the Department of Trade and Industry in terms of price monitoring.

During the National Security Council meeting that President Rodrigo Duterte presided over to settle the impasse in the bicameral conference committee on what is now the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the issue of high rice prices was raised.

Straightaway the President called somebody on the phone who received the patented Rodrigo Duterte fire and brimstone. The person on the other end was supposed to be the head of the Manila rice cartel which dictates the prices and supply of the staple grain.

Strange as it is, state investigating arms such as the National Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group had produced no arrest on rice traders despite the statement of Rody that those behind the cartel are well known.

In his State of the Nation Address (SoNA), Rody repeated a warning that he frequently issues:

“I now ask all the rice hoarders, cartels and their protectors, you know that I know who you are: stop messing with the people. Power sometimes is not a good thing. But I hope I will not have to use it against you,” Duterte said.

“Consider yourselves warned; mend your ways now or the full force of the State shall be brought to bear upon you,” he added.

Rody’s statement was a call to action for the government to strike hard against hoarders and price manipulators of the politically-sensitive commodity.

Thus far, the only perceivable action taken by any agency was that of the Department of Trade and Industry in terms of price monitoring and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) which urged Congress to speed up the rice tariffication bill.

The inaction of law enforcers is strange indeed since legislators, after conducting separate probes on the rice cartel, have practically handed the identities of the traders to the police and the NBI in a silver platter.

The Senate committee on agriculture has established the existence of the cartel and even its intrusion into the grains agency, the National Food Authority, but even the repeated pleas of Sen. Cynthia Villar, chair of the panel, for the Department of Justice (DoJ) to produce even one prosecution as a warning shot against the cartel did not produce a result.

Villar issued the call to the DoJ not only after Rody’s SoNA but long since her panel came out with a report on the rice industry way back in February.

The House committee on agriculture and food even identified 13 trading firms in its probe on rice cartels in Metro Manila.

The panel said the firms hoard rice from the NFA and mix it with other rice varieties before these are resold.

The strong resistance to replace the quota system with tariffs, thus removing restrictions on importation also strongly points to the cartel as being behind it.

The spin against the removal of the quota system was that it will result in higher prices which was contrary to the estimate of the NEDA of a one percentage point reduction in the inflation rate with the rice tariff.

In the SoNA, Rody asked Congress to deem as urgent the enactment of the law amending Republic Act 8178, otherwise known as the Agricultural Tariffication Act.

“The panel said the firms hoard rice from the NFA and mix it with other rice varieties before these are resold.

He also ordered law enforcers to unmask those engaged in “economic sabotage,” referring to the cartel.

The rice cartel goes beyond a mere business monopoly issue since rice is a political powder keg that can spark wide unrest.

For that matter, Rody saying that the cartel was forewarned should be a cue for the prosecution agencies to step up and do their jobs.

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