Hullabaloo over P20 per kilo rice

Taking place in the last stretch of the election campaign period, a plan to sell rice at P20 per kilo in the markets went a-boiling. But the P20 per kilo rice will only be available supposedly all over the Visayas provinces. So instead of being a welcomed development, it has become a political football between the administration candidates and the self-proclaimed opposition bets in the coming May 12 mid-term elections.

The huge, drastic price cut comes as President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) is almost halfway into his six-year term in office. The P20 per kilo rice will finally deliver PBBM’s campaign promise as his rating dropped 17 points – a decline to just 25 percent from the 42 percent he enjoyed in a Pulse Asia survey done in February.

As announced last week by Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., the government intends to allocate P3.5 billion to P4.5 billion to subsidize the program that will start in the Visayas region. According to Tiu Laurel, the plan to sell P20-per-kilo rice came up after PBBM met with 12 governors at the Cebu Provincial Capitol last April 23. The plan cropped up after PBBM attended the campaign rally in Cebu of the 11-man senatorial ticket and local candidates running under the administration-backed Alyansa ng Bagong Pilipinas.

“Our President has given the directive to the Department of Agriculture to formulate this to be sustainable and to continue until 2028,” Tiu Laurel disclosed. Thus, the P20 per kilo rice program will run until December but may be extended to February 2026, or even until 2028, he cited. The national and local governments will share the cost of subsidizing the cheap rice, the DA chief further explained.

This was subsequently confirmed by Palace press officer Claire Castro and that PBBM, in fact, wants the P20 per kilo rice program to be funded in next year’s national budget. This was to thwart public criticisms aired by Vice President Sara Duterte on what she believed is a last-ditch election campaign gimmick to prop up the waning winnability of the Marcos-backed senatorial slate.

VP Sara deemed it as a “too little, too late” for the government to deliver on the campaign promise. The results of the mid-term elections are seen as reaffirmation of the popular mandate of PBBM and programs of his government, if any is left.

With rice as our basic staple, the Philippines has been a major importer of rice stocks from Vietnam, Thailand and other neighboring countries that have surplus rice production. While our growing population is pushing much the demand, the low rice production of our country could barely meet our own rice needs.

The Congress-approved Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) was supposed to temper the price of rice while earmarking the revenues collected from tariffs to subsidize rice farmers in modernizing and increasing their palay produce. However, the RTL did not help any to bring down price of rice in the markets. The DA had to impose a suggested retail price (SRP) on imported rice because it apparently made it more profitable for traders.

Actually, the implementation of this plan to finally sell rice at P20 per kilo should not come as a surprise.

After all, the goal of making available P20 per kilo rice was one of the promises made by PBBM along with then Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, who was his vice presidential runningmate in the May 2022 elections. Less than two years in office, VP Sara resigned as concurrent Education secretary in June 2024 in a bitter parting of ways with PBBM.

Things took a turn for the worse for VP Sara following her resignation from the Marcos Cabinet. VP Sara has since then crossed swords with former administration allies in the 19th Congress led by Speaker Martin Romualdez. The division between supporters of the Marcoses and Dutertes got exacerbated with the government’s “surrender” to the International Criminal Court (ICC) of VP’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte.

The ally turned arch critic now assails the initiative to deliver on their campaign promise. Making dramatic allusion that Filipinos “are not animals,” VP Sara fears the rice to be sold might not even be fit for human consumption. VP Sara likened the lower-priced rice plan as nothing but a scam. “Binubudol na naman nila ang mga tao sa P20 per kilo bigas,” VP Sara charged.

VP Sara’s latest public tirades obviously raised anew the hackles of Malacañang. A lawyer like VP Sara, Castro called out with equal bile the VP’s criticisms on the P20 per kilo rice program. “A true leader and a true Filipino should support a fellow Filipino, especially the leader of the country. They should not let crab mentality prevail and they should not be termites of society,” Castro fumed.

Castro dismissed VP Sara’s claims that the Visayas was chosen as the pilot area for the program because it is a vote-rich area. She argued many residents in the Visayas region are in need and that the National Food Authority (NFA) has ample rice stock in the area. Castro though reassured the public the quality of rice to be sold at P20 per kilo is of the same quality as the one that costs P33 per kilo.

“Let us unite so the President and the government can achieve their aspirations for the people,” Castro urged.

If it remains an “aspiration,” Malacañang should therefore be more forthcoming to admit the P20 per kilo rice campaign promise is not feasible to achieve. By this time, PBBM should concede he could not deliver on this campaign promise. He personally tried it from day one of his administration but failed. The Chief Executive learned the hard way when he served as concurrent Agriculture secretary for almost a year.

As monitored by DA, the price of “special” imported rice averages P65 per kilo while local commercial “special” rice costs up to P58 per kilo. Kadiwa rice is pegged at P35 per kilo. So why the hullabaloo over the P20 per kilo rice?