Piñol: Duterte OK’d mandatory inspection of rice warehouses

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas & Elijah Felice E. Rosales

President Duterte has approved the proposal of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to set up a task force that would conduct mandatory inspection of all rice warehouses in the country, according to the DA chief.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said on his Facebook post the green light for the creation of the Task Force Bigas was given by the President in a meeting in Malacañang  on Wednesday.

“The task force will conduct actual rice-stock inventory in the country and establish accurate baseline information on the country’s rice supply,” Piñol said.

“President Duterte said Task Force Bigas should be led by the DA and supported by other agencies, like the bureaus of Customs and Internal Revenue, and the Philippine Statistics Office [sic],” he added.

Piñol said the Office of the President will soon release a memorandum order to operationalize the interagency task force. The memo will be signed by Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea.

He said one of the objectives of Task Force Bigas is “to avert any attempt at hoarding rice to create an artificial shortage” following the pronouncement of the President that the country will not import rice while harvest is ongoing.

“The new policy declared by the President is aimed at protecting Filipino rice farmers from price manipulation. Historically, paddy rice-buying prices would fall from a high of P18 per kilogram [before the start of harvest] to only about P10 to P12 per kg during peak harvest, a result of the inshipment of imported rice,” Piñol said.

“The task force will conduct a nationwide inventory of all rice stocks, including those that entered the country through the backdoor by a well-organized rice-smuggling syndicate, which receives the rice from other countries in the waters off Malaysia and transferred to small boats that bring the stocks to Zamboanga City and other small ports in the peninsula,” he added.

Earlier Piñol said he proposed the setup of Task Force Bigas to Duterte, as the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) data on rice were “not accurate”.

He said the PSA data did not take into account smuggled rice.

Citing data from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Piñol said the Philippines has a rice inventory of about 5 million metric tons (MMT).

IRRI analyst, Dr. Samarendu Mohanty, said the Philippines has an inventory of about 5 MMT of rice. Mohanty also said the export price of rice in the world market today has fallen to very affordable (levels) partly because of the announcement by President Duterte that the Philippines will not import during the harvest season, Piñol added.

‘Lift rice QR’

The Asean Business Advisory Council (Abac) on Thursday urged the Philippine government to let go of its quantitative restriction (QR) on rice and to focus instead on addressing the needs of rice farmers.

Abac Chairman Jose Ma. A. Concepcion III urged the Philippine government to pursue its hybridization program to increase rice supply and help farmers increase their income.

“The QR will be removed because there’s no chance to defer it again. But the implementation of the free trade on rice will take time,” Concepcion told reporters in a news briefing in Pasay City on Thursday.

“Now is the perfect time for the government to support the hybridization of rice. This is the only way for our rice industry to prosper on its own,” he added.

Concepcion noted that the Asean is currently focused on reducing inequality in the region by attending to the needs of the “marginalized and underserved” like the farmers.

“In the middle of all these privatization, liberalization and deregulation, we must work to find the right balance in the distribution of wealth. And we must begin with the workers in the agriculture sector,” the Abac chief said.

He said Manila should learn from Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam—Asean countries that were once poor but are now reaping the fruits of their hard work.

“Come to think of it, Vietnam was formerly bombed and devastated by the war. But now, look at them. Their agriculture is better than the Philippines, in spite of them learning their ways from us,” Concepcion said.

“We should not be urging our rice farmers to plant another crop. Instead, we should help our rice farmers develop their farming so we will be able to resolve rural poverty.”