BOTOLAN, Zambales—A program initiated by the local government unit (LGU) in this town has effectively reduced the price of rice sold to residents to less than P20 per kilogram.
Botolan Mayor Jun Omar Ebdane said the project allows local folks to buy rice at the discounted price of P100 for 6 kilos, or about P16.67 per kg.
“This is really meant to help the poor, especially our Ayta brethren in the remote areas, as well as marginal farmers and even fishermen, so that they may avail of rice at cheaper prices during the rainy months when there is no rice harvest,” Ebdane said.
The program was launched by Ebdane last July 12 and will continue until the end of September.
Ebdane said local rice growers supply the commercial-grade rice varieties that the LGU sells to residents.
Under the program, two LGU teams go out to the barangays on a thrice-a-week schedule and distribute the rice with the help of barangay officials who check out whether the buyers are bona fide residents.
Since the program started in July, Botolan has released some 580 cavans of rice, or more than 29,000 kilos to residents.
Botolan, which has the biggest land area among the 13 towns in Zambales, has a total of 31 barangays, some of which are in the rugged foothills near Mt. Pinatubo. It has a total population of 66,739 as of 2020.
Ebdane said the rice subsidy program is a joint project of the Botolan LGU, the provincial government of Zambales, and the office of Congresswoman Doris Maniquiz of the second district of Zambales.
“Originally, our target price was P20 per kilo for 5 kilos. But Congresswoman Bing [Maniquiz] added a counterpart of one kilo, so it became 6 kilos for P100,” Ebdane added.
He added that the rice subsidy program has been in place Botolan since 2016 when Maniquiz was the town mayor. “I just adopted it because it really makes a difference to the residents.”
“We did not set a limit as to how many 6-kilo packages the residents may avail of,” Ebdane said. “As long as they get stubs from their barangay, they can buy as much as they need.”
The subsidy program in Botolan is the first project in Zambales that seeks to allow residents to have access to cheap rice.
One of President Marcos’s campaign promises is to reduce the price of the staple to P20 a kilo, a goal that the Department of Agrarian Reform recently said may be attainable early next year.
Image credits: Henry Empeño