Let me borrow from the title of a movie whose trailer I saw on TV while on a recent visit to Manila. The movie is “The Hows of Us”—whatever that means to the plot of the rom-com.
Many of the proposed solutions to the rice crisis we are experiencing and which has been the subject of many articles in this space are prospective medium- and long-term remedies. Unfortunately, what matters to the Filipino consumer is the present, the “nows” of us, not the “hows” for the future.
As we await the Bangko Sentral figures of August inflation, no less than the Department of Finance through its USec and chief economist Gil Beltran has said that it could reach 5.9 percent, a nine-year high, surpassing the July 2018 index of 5.7 percent.
The price of rice, despite all the assurances of DA and NFA, keeps moving up. The seasonal surge in the price of vegetables in this monsoon period, even fish and pork, plus other externalities like the continued increase in oil prices makes USec Beltran’s estimate quite likely, if not even conservative. The cost-push inflation continues to hound the “nows” of every Filipino.
There is a standing rule that NFA’s buffer stocks at any single time of the year should be 15 days of the average national consumption. That’s anywhere from 460,000 to 500,000 metric tons, or close to 10-million bags.
But during the lean months, which means the period between the summer harvest (April-May) and the wet-season crop, which is harvested September to November, the rule of thumb is that NFA must have 30 days inventory, or some 0.9 to 1 million tons. This also coincides with our typhoon season, although there are late-comer typhoons, and these tend to be the stronger ones. Think Yolanda in early November, or Ondoy and Pepeng in late September, Pedring in early October, where not only do warehouses get flooded, but worse, palay ready for harvest get inundated by massive floods, damaging the farmer’s crop.
During these lean months in-between harvests, even the farmers become consumers, having already consumed the rice they saved for their own family’s consumption after selling most of it.
NFA stocks, despite its rushed imports, are somewhere around five to seven days—so far from 15, let alone 30.
Government and media always blame the cartels, the hoarders, portraying them as greedy villains who unconscionably make hay while the consumers suffer. They call for extreme measures like “raiding” the warehouses of the distribution chain, the millers and traders.
But how do you define hoarding in quantitative terms? How does a raider of the bodega declare that there is “too much” being “hoarded?” It makes for a good soundbyte, but it will only worsen the situation. Despite the “most feared” president in decades, the prices move up, up and away. What does this indicate?
There is a supply problem.
The logistical costs of hoarding at a time like this do not justify prolonged storage in warehouses. That early palay harvests are being bought from farmers at historical highs also indicates that there is a supply problem. The weather has not been cooperative, so many farmers had to delay their planting. Again, that is not good news for the “nows” of the rice problem.
By now it is clear to everyone and his mother that whatever the internal reasons, NFA imported too late. In rice as in almost every endeavor, “timing is everything.”
Quite inexcusable as well is how the NFA, whether the administrator or its Council, got to a point where their inventory was depleted to almost a day’s national consumption before they started the process of importation.
Unfortunately, the solutions proffered, such as legislating rice tarriffication to lift the quantitative restrictions (something hardly any consumer understands except for economic managers and academics) will not cure the present shortage quickly. It is not a “now” remedy.
Former Neda director-general Ciel Habito wrote an article yesterday promoting the merits of brown or un-polished rice instead of polished white rice. He is right. Polishing palay removes 40 percent of its weight before it becomes white rice, sometimes less. Brown rice yields 70 to 75 percent, and the difference is enough to solve the shortfall between what we currently harvest and what we presently eat as a nation.
But how long will it take to educate taste buds and eating habits?
Post-harvest facilities should have been improved, so that losses estimated at 5-7 percent due to primitive drying of palay and improper handling could be reduced. But all these should have been done yesterday. The history of how the Department of Agriculture through so many decades has been wasting budgeted resources on lesser priorities and corruption is legendary.
Whatever else anybody and his mother can decry, and whoever else anybody and his mother could blame, we need “instant” solutions to the rice supply and rice price problem.
Unfortunately there are no quick fixes when problems have already multiplied several times over. Importing rice, even through the less time-consuming government-to-government transactions, is not as easy as buying “suka” from the sari-sari store.
Even allowing the private sector to import with or without a permit from the NFA will still take some time. You cannot airlift rice from Vietnam or Thailand to the Philippines. Even if the Bureau of Customs declares “open sesame” to smugglers at this time will not bring the rice fast enough, except perhaps in the southernmost islands as the DA secretary proposes, but that is good only for very limited quantities, because Sabah is not a surplus producer.
So what can be done?
We just have to wait for the ripening palay to be ready for harvest, and that means, relief can come only in October-November. But will the prices abate enough? With the ex-farm palay prices having reached historically high proportions, don’t be too optimistic that retail prices will normalize soon enough.
In 2011, on the night of Sept. 25 and the whole day of Sept. 26, Typhoon “Pepeng” struck, bringing with it so much rain that cascaded from the slopes of the Sierra Madre. By Sept. 27, the almost harvestable palay in Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and Bulacan was destroyed. “Dumapa ang palay,” the farmers cried. Caked in mud after the floods subsided, the palay was rendered useless.
The DA and NFA estimated the loss at close to 500,000 metric tons. All lost in a single day.
Let us pray that no such thing, or no “Yolanda,” “Ondoy” or “Pedring,” “Milenyo” or whatever name Pagasa calls a typhoon does not come visit Central Luzon, or Eastern Visayas all the way to Iloilo and Mindoro, when farmers are about to harvest in October or November.
In 2011, because NFA had ample stocks, prices remained fairly stable despite Typhoon “Pepeng” and its cascading rain.
Now, we have little if any to “buffer” a calamity of such proportions.
Maybe the Roman Catholic Church can issue an “oratio imperata,” and storm the heavens with prayers of the faithful. And every Filipino, consumer as well as farmer, should pray.