The Department of Agriculture (DA) has agreed to invoke a law that allows the agency to impose safeguard duty on rice imports, according to the chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means.
Albay Rep. Joey S. Salceda said in a statement that Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar has agreed to his proposal to impose safeguard duty on rice imports during the hearing on the DA’s budget last Friday.
With the surge in rice imports and the injury it caused to domestic industry, Salceda said the government may invoke Republic Act (RA) 8800, or the Safeguard Measures Act, to impose a 30-percent to 80-percent duty on imported rice outside of the minimum access volume (MAV) of 350,000 metric tons (MT).
“The Philippines cannot restore QRs [quantitative restrictions] because this was repealed by the rice trade liberalization law. Based on my suggestion, he [Dar] is considering a provisional rate of up to 30 percent for 365 days for imports above the MAV and this is on top of the tariff of 35 percent under the law,” he said.
“RA 8800 is well recognized under our commitments with the WTO [World Trade Organization] and the provisional measure has a maximum period of one year,” Salceda added.
After the lapse of the provisional measure, the lawmaker said the approval of the Tariff Commission is needed for a permanent measure to protect the domestic rice industry, which could last for a maximum of 10 years.
According to Salceda, the three conditions for a surge duty have been met under RA 8800. He noted that rice imports surged in the first quarter by 26 percent in the first quarter and 1,492 percent in the second quarter.
“There is real injury with [average] palay price falling by 16 percent. The injury can be causally linked to the surge in imports. It does not matter whether the surge is before or after the [effectivity] of the rice trade liberalization law,” he said.
“RA 8800 is based on the fact that there is a surge and there is injury because of this,” the lawmaker added.
Invoking RA 8800 is one of the three options pitched by Salceda to prevent planters from incurring more losses due to the drop in the farm-gate price of palay. Salceda also urged President Duterte to consider requesting special powers from Congress to impose the QRs.
The lawmaker said the government should give cash transfers to smallholder farmers and concessional loans to big rice planters. He said a total of 2.1 million farmers will benefit from this proposal.
The Philippine Statistics Authority reported on Thursday that the average farm-gate price of unhusked rice plummeted to P8 per kilogram to P10 kg in Luzon.
Farmers’ groups and a number of lawmakers blamed this on RA 11203, or the rice trade liberalization law. RA 11203 made it easier for traders to purchase rice from abroad as they only need to secure sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance and pay the corresponding tariffs for the imports.
Image credits: CESAR M. PERANTE