VP Sara slams P20/kilo rice program anew

CEBU, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte criticized the Marcos administration for the three-year delay in delivering the P20-per-kilo rice that President Bongbong Marcos had promised during his 2022 campaign.

Speaking at the Solidarity Rally for Change led by Cebu gubernatorial candidate Pamela Baricuatro in Carcar City, Duterte said the timing of the program’s implementation clearly shows it is being used as an election tactic.

“Nilabay na ang tulo ka tuig unya naa na kuno karon ang tag P20 nga bugas. Kabalo mo ngano? Kay election na man sad. Kinsay gipahimuslan? Ang kabus, ang ilang gipahimuslan,” Duterte told the crowd.

Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia, on a separate statement earlier, defended the Department of Agriculture’s P20-per-kilo rice program, stressing that the initiative is meant to help indigent families and not serve political interests.

“Up to now, maoy gisigehan og sukot, hain na man ang 20 pesos nga bugas? Karong nia na, ang yawyaw na sab, nganong karon pa man? Aw di mo, ayaw! Pero nia na,” the governor said during a coordination meeting with mayors for the program’s rollout in Cebu Province last Friday.

“Ang uban sab moingon vote buying. Dili uy. Sila may ni-buy, di man kita,” Garcia said, emphasizing that the rice will not be distributed for free but sold at a subsidized price.

“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I’d rather be damned, I don’t care, for as long as the people of Cebu will get what they need right now,” she said.

“Just to spell out how totally knee-jerk ra kaayo ang reaction nga gihimo na hinuong political reaction. I think when it comes to the people’s welfare, let’s not make it political,” Garcia said.

In the recent press conference in Cebu, Visayas governors led by Gov. Garcia stressed that while it was initially planned to have the rice distributed in the Visayas, it has been decided to be rolled-out nationwide. This was the decision after the meeting of the Visayas governors with President Marcos himself at the Cebu Capitol.

"The good thing about this is not going to be in the Cebu Province alone, this is going to be launched nationwide," Garcia had said.

But Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said recently that the national government will initially implement the program in the Visayas before expanding it nationwide, with partner LGUs like Cebu Province shouldering at least half of the P6.50-per-kilo subsidy.

Laurel emphasized that the Visayas was chosen for the pilot rollout due to its higher-than-average poverty rate. Some areas, such as Negros Island and Eastern Visayas, have poverty rates of 22.6 percent and 20.3 percent respectively, compared to the national average of 10.9 percent.

According to Sugbo News, Cebu Province is expected to be the first LGU to implement the program as early as Wednesday, April 30, 2025, since it has already been running a similar P20-per-kilo rice initiative under its Sugbo Merkadong Barato (SMB) program since November 2023.

It was learned that rice withdrawal from the National Food Authority (NFA) will be done on Monday and Tuesday this week for distribution to the respective LGUs of Cebu. By Wednesday, Cebu Province, through its various LGUs, is expected to begin selling rice at P20 per kilo.

This follows Tiu Laurel's order on Sunday for the NFA to begin repositioning rice stocks to the Visayas in preparation for the program’s launch.

“It will take several weeks to transfer tens even hundreds of thousands of 50-kilo bags rice from NFA warehouses, particularly from Mindoro, to various parts of the Visayas,” Tiu Laurel said.

Tiu Laurel, who also chairs the NFA Council, said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has granted the Department of Agriculture’s request for exemption from the election ban. In Memorandum No. 25-07984, Comelec Chairman George Garcia approved the agency’s rice program, allowing its implementation until 2028 with a disbursement amount of P5 billion.

Reducing the price of rice to P20 per kilo was a key campaign promise of Marcos during the 2022 presidential race.

Tiu Laurel said the subsidy for the lower-priced rice will be shared equally between the DA’s Food Terminal Inc. and participating LGUs. He explained that the rice will come from the NFA’s buffer stocks, which, as of last week, had reached a five-year high of 378,157 metric tons—equivalent to 7.56 million bags of rice, enough to feed Filipinos for 10 days.

The NFA warehouses in Iloilo alone currently hold the equivalent of 862,409 sacks of rice, he added.

Governors from the Visayas have endorsed the program and expressed readiness to share part of the subsidy.

NFA Administrator Larry Lacson noted the need to transfer rice stocks from Mindoro to areas with limited production, such as Cebu, Negros Island, Samar, and Leyte.

“The additional stocks for the Visayas will mainly come from Mindoro Island, where the NFA inventory exceeds 830,000 bags of rice,” Lacson said.

He explained that transferring 40,000 sacks of rice from Mindoro to Cebu could take up to a month. —  Bella Cariaso of Philstar (FREEMAN)