Agriculture officials and other members of the President’s economic team must agree on how best to address rising food prices, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said Friday.
“It is the duty of the state to feed its people and it is the strategy of this country to keep food cheap by lowering the cost of production. We have failed in most,” Salceda said in an interview on radio dzMM.
Salceda, tasked by Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to draw up counter-inflation measures, said the Department of Agriculture should make up with the National Food Authority Council, which decides rice import policy.
Food prices rose by 8.5 percent in August, surpassing headline inflation of 6.4 percent, which was a nine-year high.
Salceda said there was no need to replace the economic managers, but they need to talk to each other.
He again pushed for lower tariffs on meat, fish, vegetable, and corn imports to stabilize food prices, saying cheaper imports would spur competition.
But former Agrarian Reform secretary Rafael Mariano threatened to lead a mass action of farmers and fishermen to dramatize their sentiments against rice imports, rising inflation and the lack of subsidies for the agricultural sector.
“Let this be a forewarning to Duterte—hungry people are angry people. He won’t know what hit him once the poor and hungry masses rise up and revolt,” he said.
He said the farmers from the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women, Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas, and Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura from Bicol and Central Luzon would flock to Manila in a protest caravan to protect local agriculture.
He said the agriculture sector has suffered “enough blows and losses due to economic and trade liberalization.”
“In fact, the slow agricultural growth has dragged down the entire economy for several years now,” he said.
He said the government must “defend and strengthen local agriculture, farmers and producers.”
“Importation is an unsuitable solution,” he said. “It’s a band-aid on gangrene.”
On Thursday, Benguet Gov. Crescencio Pacalso assured the public there was no shortage of vegetables from the highland province as a result of the successive monsoon rains that battered the area recently.
He pointed out that the rise in vegetable prices in Metro Manila is not at all caused by short supply from the province, the source of about 75 percent of vegetables sold in Metro Manila.
Pacalso said the rising cost of highland vegetables sold in Metro Manila is more due to the difficulty of transporting the goods down to the central region because of road damage caused by the heavy monsoon rains and the middlemen.
In a press briefing here, the governor said the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council recorded that as of Sept. 3, Benguet has recorded agricultural damage of P73 million in 11 of its 13 municipalities.
“This is is only about 5 to 10 percent of the total production of Benguet,” Pacalso said.
From January to July this year, Benguet produced 669.97 metric tons of assorted highland vegetables. The province produced an average of 95.7 metric tons a month.
Pacalso said the damage in agriculture included high-value crops, rice, corn, and other products grown in Benguet.
Meanwhile, a group of sugar farmers said the Sugar Regulatory Administration has failed to lower the retail price of sugar despite the importation of 200,000 metric tons of sugar in June.
The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura chided the SRA over the manipulation of sugar prices.
John Milton Lozande, UMA secretary-general, urged the government to investigate the price manipulation and to put a price cap on sugar in markets.
Instead of importing sugar, the government should be helping the sugar industry to improve, he said.
Also on Friday, police raided a warehouse in Marilao, Bulacan, where rice smuggled from China was allegedly stored.
Police said more than 10,000 sacks of rice were spotted in the warehouse when it was first visited on Thursday, but a raid at dawn on Friday produced only 3,000 sacks.
The Bureau of Customs has yet to confirm if the rice was smuggled. With PNA
