By Gabriela Baron
Amid the rising rice prices, rice watch group Bantay Bigas urged President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to repeal the Rice Liberalization Law.
In a statement, the group also urged Marcos Jr., ahead of his maiden State of the Nation Address (SONA) to “lay down concrete plans to boost local production instead of importation.”
“We decried the catastrophic impact of the more than three years implementation of RA 11203 or Rice Liberalization Law to the livelihood of Filipino rice farmers in the country,” Bantay Bigas said.
Meanwhile, Amihan Secretary-General Cathy Estavillo lamented that the Rice Liberalization Law “literally meant farmers’ bankruptcy, indebtedness, poverty, hunger.”
“[It] was destroying national food security, based on self-reliance and self-sufficiency due to the influx of imported rice. We challenge Marcos Jr. to repeal the law to solve the worsening hunger in the country,” Estavillo said.
Bantay Bigas estimated that due to depressed farm gate prices, rice farmers lost around P165 billion from 2019 to 2020.
The rice watch group added that Marcos Jr.’s “promise” to lower the price of rice to P20 kilo “was unattainable.”
Marcos Jr. earlier said he wants to bring rice prices down to just P20 per kilo.
Estavillao said the National Food Authority must be provided with a higher budget to buy the palay (unhusked rice) at P20 per kilo and regulate the prices of affordable rice in the market.
She urged the President to “take back the government’s regulatory power on farmgate and retail prices, and oppose profiteering by private traders and importers.”
“To save the Philippine rice industry, we urge all of the producer and consumer sectors to join the broadening demand to repeal RA 11203, defend the national rice industry and uphold national food security, as the people’s legacy struggle for the next generation Filipinos,” Estavillo ended. –ag
