Rice hoarder’s warehouses to be opened by force

MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte remains consistent in his pronouncement in his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) last month that he would not hesitate to use the entire power of the state to order the seizure of rice hoarded in warehouses, Malacañang said yesterday.

“He invoked national security in this regard, so we warn rice hoarders that the President will use the full force of the state and force open warehouses where these hoarded rice may be found,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said.

Malacañang made the statement in the wake of Duterte expressing alarm over inflation, which has broken last month’s record high.  

Roque assured the public that the government is working double time to address the issue.

“We are looking at all aspects, further alleviation measures. And of course, the statement of the President against rice hoarders was because the increase in price of rice was the major contributor to the increase in overall inflation,” he said.

Roque confirmed that the President earlier personally called a rice trader suspected of hoarding tons of rice in his warehouse and warned of charging him with economic sabotage.

Rice immediately flooded the market, Roque said, citing monitoring of concerned agencies. The Palace did not identify the trader.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo solution

At a press briefing in Malacañang, Roque said Duterte is amenable to looking at the recommendation of Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to lower tariff imports for fish, rice, meat, poultry, corn, wheat flour and vegetables.

“The President has previously expressed alarm over rising inflation,” Roque said. “The recommendation given by Arroyo was considered by the economic cluster.”

Duterte met with the Cabinet last Monday, where they discussed various issues.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno also held another meeting with the President.

On the recommendation of Agriculture Secretary Emmañuel Piñol, Roque said the law restricts Piñol’s recommendation on imposing suggested retail prices for fish products.

“As far as the importation of fish products is concerned… it cannot be delivered immediately to the markets,” Roque said.

“It has to be delivered at an intermediate point, which has to be amended before we can actually effect importation of fish products,” he added.

Rice tariff bill OK’d

The House of Representatives yesterday approved on second reading the rice tariffication bill, which is among the priority legislative measures Duterte mentioned in his third SONA last July 23.

Under the bill, volume restrictions on rice imports would be replaced with 40-percent tariff.

All duties collected from the importation of rice would go to a rice competitiveness enhancement fund that would be used to help farmers.

The administration’s economic managers have projected that liberalizing rice imports through tariffication could lower the inflation rate by 0.4 percentage point.

Rep. Jose Panganiban Jr. of party-list ANAC-IP, agriculture committee chairman, is the principal author and sponsor of the bill.

Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte, a co-author, said the proposed law “will not only pull down the price of rice by as much as P7 per kilo but also set up a huge support fund that will enable palay growers to increase their harvests while reducing their production costs.”

“It will provide immediate relief to ordinary Filipinos reeling from soaring rice prices resulting from the perennial supply shortfall and volatile prices of the grain in the domestic retail market,” he said.

Villafuerte had called on his colleagues in the House as early as May last year to look into the true state of the country’s rice inventory with an eye on coming up with policy proposals for the government to ensure “ample and affordable” supply.

He made the call after the National Food Authority manager in his province informed him of the precarious level of Camarines Sur’s rice stocks.

At that time, the province’s buffer stock totaled only 42,293 cavans. The supply was equivalent to three days’ consumption, NFA manager Yolando Navarro reported.

“The rice tariffication bill will hit two birds with one stone: it will help bring down rice prices and stabilize its supply while helping our farmers become competitive through the establishment of a competitiveness enhancement fund that will be used to provide them cheap loans, training, scholarships and modern facilities, among other benefits,” Villafuerte said. Camarines Sur is the fourth largest rice-producing province in the country.

Rice tariffication is one of the measures being pushed by the administration’s economic team.

In a joint statement, the economic team –composed of the Department of Finance (DOF), Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) – said the rise in consumer prices in July was mainly caused by supply issues, particularly affecting agricultural products.

“The current price pressures emanate mainly from supply-side factors. Addressing supply constraints to curb inflation is the utmost priority of the government,” members of the team said.

They cited in particular the declining rice stock inventory caused by weather disturbances affecting the Philippines and other rice-producing countries like Thailand and Vietnam.

They added the country’s rice inventory in July declined to 2.36 million metric tons from the 2.57 million MT recorded in the same period last year. The July inventory was lower than the 2.91 million MT recorded in June.

They also pushed for the enactment of a rice tariffication measure.

“This reform in agriculture will also provide a P10-billion enhancement fund for rice farmers that will help them have better access to technology and, thereby, ramp up their production,” they added.

The economic team also called on concerned government agencies, such as the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Agriculture, to implement stricter price monitoring to ensure that no unscrupulous individuals or groups would manipulate the prices of goods.

On rising fuel prices, the DOF, DBM and NEDA said the government needs to complete the implementation of the Pantawid Pasada Program, which provides a lump sum subsidy of P5,000 to 179,852 jeepney franchise holders this year.

Inflation last month accelerated further to hit a fresh five-year high of 5.7 percent, bringing the average year-to-date inflation to 4.5 percent. This is above the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ target range of two to four percent.

This was brought about by the spike in the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, economic managers said.

However, they also noted that inflation slightly eased on a month-on-month basis, settling at 0.5 percent in July from 0.6 percent the previous month.

The economic team expressed confidence that inflation would taper off towards the end of 2018, echoing the BSP’s near-term outlook.

Defer rate hikes

For Arroyo, regulatory agencies should defer increases in oil prices and in electricity and water rates to arrest the continued rise in the cost of products and services.

Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, Arroyo’s focal person for counter-inflation measures, said yesterday the new Speaker is proposing that these “regulated price adjustments” be postponed “until inflation goes back to the 2-4 percent target band.” He said the increases “add to inflation pressures.”

Salceda said he has already relayed the proposal of Arroyo and her economic team to the Energy Regulatory Commission, Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System-Regulatory Office and the Department of Energy.

He added that in the case of electricity, there is a newly approved rate increase of 18 centavos to 26 centavos per kilowatt-hour.

“Some of these regulated price adjustments were approved way before and are just starting to be implemented. There is also suspicion that aside from the 60-percent spike in global oil prices, higher ethanol content requirement may have nudged retail petroleum prices higher,” Salceda stressed.

Rep. Michael Romero of party-list 1-Pacman, an economist like Arroyo and Salceda, said the counter-inflation measures proposed by the Speaker “are surgically targeted ways to ease the financial woes of our constituents.”

Romero also recommended that the monthly subsidy to 10 million poor households under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law be increased from P200 to P500.

“The increase will allow these families to cope with five-percent inflation and the depreciation of the peso,” he said.  – With Jess Diaz, Mary Grace Padin, Paolo Romero