We all knew that there were rice hoarders and smugglers. Even the Marcos government drumbeat, "Bilang na ang mga araw ninyo (your days are numbered)," about its plan to run after unscrupulous quarters smuggling and holding on to their rice stocks in anticipation of higher prices.
Well, months have elapsed. There were pictorials of so-called raids, but nobody has gone to jail while the price of rice has spiraled beyond P55 per kilo.
Instead of criminal prosecution, the government simply imposed a price cap. Rather, we have seen that this administration has let the culprits go.
The Marcos administration is either confused or up to some dubious agenda. Malacañang ordered a price cap on retailed rice to address the skyrocketing price of rice. Then, it directed the Department of Social Work and Development to help the rice retailers, saying that "they lost money."
Then, from nowhere, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno announced the scrapping of tariffs on imported rice. We are witnessing a classic case of disorientation among government decision-makers. For now, there is no antidote for it. This government is in limbo as to what action to take next.
To add salt to injury, the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. passed a resolution endorsing the acts of PBBM and Diokno. While they sing "Hosannah," they are also smiling from ear to ear as the rice traders among them are celebrating the huge bonanza that will accrue to their bank vaults.
In a way, this is the resurrection of the Chinese rice cartels that the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., the incumbent's father, fought so valiantly against when he put up the National Grains Authority, the functions of which were expanded when it was renamed to the National Food Authority.
It's tragic that the son has failed to learn from his father, who liberated the farmers from the domineering cartel and achieved the goal of making us a rice-exporting country.
The conspiracy among the Departments of Agriculture, Finance, and Industry, the FFCCII, and some legislators in both houses of Congress has sounded the death knell for our farmers.
Let it be remembered, as it is written in the pages of history, that revolutions do not start with the bourgeoisie who control the means in a capitalist society but with the proletariat or working class. In current times, moreover, people power has proven effective.
The predilection for importing food, especially produced by our own farmers, is what ails this administration. Garlic, onions, and tomatoes, among others, are rotting on the farms. Still, the Department of Agriculture looked the other way, and instead flooded the markets with imports selling at exorbitant prices.
There is restiveness among the farmers who this administration has waylaid. To appease them, the architects of the zero-tariff said, "It's a temporary stop-gap measure."
They came up with a convoluted argument that imposing zero tariffs on rice effectively eliminates smuggling.
Of course, the proponents just legitimized a criminal act that hours ago was blatant economic sabotage. Those who were caught smuggling and hoarding rice were not only off the hook, they were able to save the huge volumes of rice in their bodegas and the tariffs they should have paid to the government. I wonder, though, into whose bank accounts the tariffs were deposited.
Zero tariffs for rice traders, a surprise gift for rice smugglers, dole outs to retailers, price caps for consumers — but there was absolutely nothing from the bright boys in the Marcos Cabinet, particularly the Agriculture department, for the distraught farmers.