Following the decision of the National Food Authority Council (NFAC) to push through with the importation of rice, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said he would urge President Duterte to cap the price of commercial rice.
“I will recommend [to the President] that there should be a cap on the price of commercial rice. The price of rice in the market now is not acceptable anymore,” Piñol told the BusinessMirror in an interview. “The rule of thumb in pricing rice is that it should be double the buying price of palay. Right now we have not heard of reports that palay is being bought at P25 per kilogram [kg], the highest now is P20. So, the price of rice should not be higher than P40,” he added.
He said the price of commercial rice should be capped at P42 to P44 per kg, while the regular-milled variety should not exceed P40 per kg. “Prices should not be higher than these figures as no one is buying paddy at P25 per kg.”
Piñol said the Department of Agriculture (DA) will open a rice outlet on Valentine’s Day, where farmers’ groups would be allowed to sell rice at P38 per kg.
National Food Authority (NFA) Spokesman Rex Estoperez confirmed to the BusinessMirror that the food agency has been allowed to purchase 250,000 metric tons (MT) of imported rice following Duterte’s directive to Cabinet Secretary Leoncio B. Evasco Jr. to green light the importation.
Evasco disclosed in a television interview on Thursday that Duterte called him on Wednesday evening to activate the standby authority of the NFA to import 250,000 MT of rice.
Evasco chairs the NFA Council, the food agency’s highest policy-making body.
“NFA is proposing to buy rice via government-to-government, [because] we have a standby for 250,000 MT. The President called me [on Wednesday] night, giving us the order to buy,” Evasco said.
NFA Administrator Jason L.Y. Aquino also confirmed that the food agency has been allowed by the President to push through with the purchase of 250,000 MT of imported rice importation to beef up its buffer stock.
However, Estoperez said the NFAC will decide on Monday the mode of procurement and the budget for rice imports. “The details of the procurement will still be discussed but talks with NFA colleagues point to the fastest mode.” Estoperez said the NFA has two options for purchasing rice from abroad: government-to-government (G2G) or via government-to-private scheme.
“If we follow the procurement law, it’s too long considering the process and preparation that should be followed. G2G importation is faster but the problem is it should be acceptable to the members of the NFAC because there’s a notion that it is prone to corruption,” he added.
The current rice stockpile of the NFA is around 1.2 million 50-kilogram bags, which is equivalent to two days of the country’s total rice consumption. This is reserved for the needs of calamity-prone areas and rice requirement of island municipalities and provinces.
The state-run food agency has already suspended its distribution of rice to almost all retailers across the country due to the depletion of its stockpile.
Grains Retailers’ Confederation of the Philippines Inc. warned that once the NFA’s stockpile is completely depleted, the price of commercial could go up by P5 per kg, as 10 million Filipinos would have no other recourse but to purchase the commercial variant.
Image credits: PNA