The non-availability of cheap National Food Authority (NFA) rice in local markets due to the enactment of the Rice Tariffication bill should not be cause for alarm since affordable rice will be made available through competition, senators said Wednesday.
This after Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol was quoted in a news report matter-of-factly saying the NFA will stop selling cheap rice when the Rice Tariffication bill is signed into law.
Malacañang said the measure is expected to be signed by President Rodrigo Duterte “any time soon.”
Prior to the passage of the Rice Tariffication Bill in Congress, President Duterte has urged for the immediate passage of the measure to “address the urgent need to improve availability of rice in the country, prevent artificial rice shortages, reduce the prices of rice in the market, and curtail the prevalence of corruption and cartel domination in the rice industry.”
Once enacted, quantitative restrictions (QR) on rice imports will be replaced by tariffs, opening the importation of rice to private traders.
Under the measure, the functions of the NFA would be limited to buying palay from local farmers and maintaining the country’s rice buffer stock.
In a text message to reporters, Senator Aquilino Pimentel III said the actual objective of the law is to allow NFA “competitors” to join the market.
“The idea is to have low priced rice in the market through competition. Low-priced rice doesn’t have to be NFA imported,” he said.
“NFA has gotten too complacent, to put it mildly, given its monopoly power to import rice. Naka idlip ang NFA kaya gumawa ang Kongreso ng radikal na hakbang para magising sa katotohanan ang NFA (The NFA slept on the job, that’s why Congress made a radical step to wake it up to the truth),” he added.
Meanwhile, Senator Francis Escudero added that while liberalizing rice importation would lead to cheap rice in the market, the Rice Tariffication bill also assures that safeguards are instituted to protect local rice farmers.
“The provisions on the safeguard and assistance to farmers should be given equal import since rice, as a commodity, is always a balancing act. Prices will go down, but we also have to give safeguards and support to our farmers,” he said in a separate message. (PNA)
