A house leader on Saturday welcomed President Rodrigo Duterte’s signing of the rice tariffication law which an opposition leader said should be fully implemented to keep prices down.
Now that rice tariffication has become a law, Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said badly needed funds would soon become readily available to palay farmers who have long been handicapped due to lack of access to financing facilities and the means to enhance their skills and productivity through modern farming methods.
Villafuerte, a co-author of this rice tarrification measure, said the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) under the rice tariffication bill, allocated 10 percent of its P10 billion allocation–or P1 billion–for credit to farmers and cooperatives, which would help the agriculture sector gain access to lending facilities.
In the Senate, Sen. Francis Pangilinan, Presidential Adviser for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization, in the previous Aquino administration, in a statement, said the enactment of the Rice Tariffication law, while being trumpeted as the remedy for high prices, was also seen by some farmers’ groups as the death knell on the local rice industry.
Pangilinan said all concerned groups should keep a tight watch on the safeguard provisions of the law to ensure they would benefit the farmers and the industry, which would bear the brunt of the influx of imported rice.
The law provides for a P10 billion Rice Enhancement Fund from the duty on imports. This, as well as the other subsidies provided for by the law, should be felt by the farmers, Pangilinan said.
When it was passed, the TRAIN Law promised additional revenues for the government to bring ease to the people’s lives, he added.
In the House, Villafuerte said the rice tariffication bill, which would liberalize imports of the staple, would also benefit consumers, who include farmers, as it would expand the access of Filipinos to cheap rice.
“This will, in turn, prevent a repeat of the 2018 inflation surge brought in large part by the supply shortfall and the subsequent retail price increase of rice,” said Villafuerte.
“Rice tariffication will benefit poor households the most, given that rice accounts for 20 percent of their consumption.”
Villafuerte recalled that inflation began to ease in the latter part of 2018 and is expected to drop even further this year following the decisive steps taken by President Duterte to remove administrative constraints on food imports and narrow the gap between farmgate and retail prices of rice and other foodstuffs.
He said the President’s success in reining in inflation in the past few months was apparently one reason for the steady climb in Duterte’s public opinion poll ratings.
Villafuerte said the RCEF would directly provide farmers the facilities they need to boost their incomes and make them competitive in the global market.
As provided under the bill, the RCEF will have a minimum annual allocation of P10 billion for six years, and tariff revenues from rice imports in excess of P10 billion shall be appropriated by the Congress for this sector, based on a menu of programs in the rice tariffication law.
Under the bill, the proposed fund will be allocated as follows:
• 50 percent for grants to farmers’ associations, registered rice cooperatives, and local government units in the form of rice equipment, to be implemented by the Philippine Center for Post-Harvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech);
• 30 percent for the development, propagation, and promotion of inbred rice seeds to rice farmers and organizations, to be implemented by the Philippine Rice Research Institution (PhilRice).
The 10 percent will be in the form of credit at preferential rates to rice farmers and cooperatives to be managed by the Land Bank (Landbank) and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).
The remaining 10 percent for extension services to teach rice farmers modern methods of farming, seed production, and farm mechanization, to be administered by PhilMech, PhilRice, the Agricultural Training Institute and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.