President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. on Friday said the country’s rice supply was the “most critical problem” as his administration continues to try to bring down prices.
“That is something that we are attending to with all of the partners that we have both in government and in the private sector,” the President said on the sidelines of the military exercises in Zambales.
Mr. Marcos, also concurrently the agriculture chief, last week said the government is “closely monitoring” rice prices, which already topped P65 per kilo in some wet markets in Metro Manila.
The President earlier said high farmgate prices and some imported farm inputs contributed to the price increase.
Agriculture Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian earlier admitted it was “hard” to attain Marcos’ campaign promise to bring down rice prices to P20 per kilo.
“We never promised,” Sebastian said.
National Economic Development Authority Secretary Arsenio Balisacan also said Mr. Marcos’ P20 per kilo of rice vision would only be possible if agriculture productivity improved, as the country needed to do a “lot of catching up” on the matter.
Rice demand from July to December this year is projected at 7.76 million metric tons, according to DA data.
Meanwhile, Senator Risa Hontiveros has deplored “inept leadership” at the Department of Agriculture and the National Food Authority as the cause of soaring rice prices.
She said this led to problematic policies and to the country’s present agricultural supply difficulties.
Hontiveros said Malacanang should not look for culprits elsewhere, as the main culprits are within the DA itself.
“There may or may not be hoarders and price manipulators; let’s wait for the results of the investigations that the President ordered,” she said.
She noted that it’s clear that the DA should acknowledge its central role in the alarming rise in rice prices.
The DA blames the spike in prices entirely on factors outside of its control, but Hontiveros insisted the DA’s meddling in theimplementation of the Food Safety Act slowed down rice importation, resulting in low inventories.
Hontiveros said that it would seem that from June to December 2022, even with the then-looming supply shortage of rice due to higher fertilizer prices, no Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Import Clearances (SPSICs) for rice were issued by the Bureau of Plant Industry.
Likewise, the number and volume of SPSICs in the first quarter of 2023 were heavily clipped compared to the year before, and this was “premeditated and announced” by DA Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban in December 2022.