My brothers and sisters, President Duterte has signed Republic Act 11203, or the rice tariffication law that aims to make the prices of rice much more affordable and ensure we have enough supply. This law will also strengthen the rice industry in order to make more competitive farmers in the international market. To achieve this goal, the rice tariffication law will end the implementation of the quantitative import restriction that limits the number of imported rice. The trade-off system from this is implementing the tariff equivalent on imported rice.
With this new law, rice is free to enter from foreign countries as long as importers will pay the appropriate tariffs and the government is serious in collecting them. According to economists, this will result to price reduction of rice in the market. The Department of Finance has estimated a decrease of P2 up to P7 per kilo of rice based on current prices. This will be of big help especially to the less-fortunate spending almost 20 percent of their daily budget on rice.
How will the rice tariffication law improve the agricultural sector, particularly the livelihood of our farmers? The law will provide what is known as the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund or simply known as Rice Fund, from collected taxes and tariffs from the imported rice. This amounts to P10 billion in the next six years and this will be administered by the Department of Agriculture. The Rice Fund is dedicated to supply machinery and equipment to farmers, the seeds for planting of rice, affordable loans and extension services like programs from Tesda on rice production.
The spirit and vision of this new law is in line with the societal teachings of the Church in giving notice to the poor, like the farmers. Because until now, they are part of the poorest sector of the country, despite all the programs the government has for the farmers. When the Philippines joined the World Trade Organization or WTO in 1995, it was given permission to limit the amount of rice entering from other countries to protect the local farmers and prepare them for what is known as the trade liberalization of rice. However, the implementation of the promise in passing the tariffication of rice was delayed by the Philippines. The government also failed in aiding farmers to better fulfill the demand of rice in the country and to better compete with the supply and quality of what is in the international market. If the government has fulfilled its promises, we won’t be having a crisis on rice and our status, as well as the farmers’ status would improve.
This begs the question, my brothers and sisters: How can we be sure that the rice tariffication law will help in making farmers more competitive and make the Philippines food self-sufficient in the following years? We need to follow the buildup of implementing rules and regulations or IRR for the new law. Many factors must be considered in passing this law, but thankfully we may give this an opportunity to truly become useful for our farmers, as well as the poor.
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