“KIDAPAWAN CITY MASSACRE’
IMAGE OF REAL RICE CRISIS
By Manny Piñol
Yesterday, I squirmed in my seat as I watched leaders of the Liberal Party hold a press conference to denounce the Duterte Administration for allegedly causing a rice crisis where the poor of this country are suffering.
It was an obvious attempt to use the controversy surrounding the prices of rice and other food commodities in the market as a tool to promote their political agenda and boost their chances of scoring in the elections of 2019.
I asked myself: How soon could these people forget? How could they possibly not understand the true meaning of a “Rice Crisis?”
The most recent rice crisis happened in 2016 towards the last few months of the Aquino Administration where the very same people complaining of a rice crisis now were the key players.
The “Aquino Administration Rice Crisis” led to unrests among farmers who staged rallies and asked government to provide them with rice because their farms were destroyed by the 6-month-long El Niño.
The Aquino Administration’s response was to disperse hungry farmers in Kidapawan City on April 1, 2016 and in the melee which followed one farmer was shot dead and over 100 were injured.
That was the real Rice Crisis!
As Secretary of Agriculture of this country, let me put this on record: There is no rice crisis in the country today. There is no rice shortage.
Indeed, the price of rice in the market is unusually high but this is mainly the result of three factors:
1. Market speculation which was caused by the disappearance of the government subsidized NFA rice in the market for about four months and the delayed arrival of the private sector imported rice;
2. Increase in the buying price of our farmers’ rice produce ranging from P22 per kilo for fresh paddy rice and P29 per kilo for “clean and dry” at 14% moisture content.
These prices are the highest in the history of the rice industry in the country pushing rice prices in the market to at least P40 per kilo up from about P36 months back;
3. Hoarding by rice traders, especially the importers who have also priced the imported rice at unjustifiable levels of P2,200 per bag.
This unusual situation marked by high prices of rice is expected to stabilize starting mid-September up to the end of the year as the delayed imports are being unloaded in the different ports and the harvest starts in the different parts of the country.
What is the country’s rice situation now?
As of yesterday, the buffer stock situation was placed at 44 days.
That does not include the imported rice being unloaded now and the new harvests.
By the end of this year, the country is expected to harvest about 19.4-million metric tons of paddy rice which would be our highest harvest in history.
It will top by about 120,000-metric tons the record harvest of 19.28-million metric tons in 2017.
Our self-sufficiency level now is 93%, meaning we still have to import 7% of our total rice requirements.
The self-sufficiency level is targeted at 95% which we are programming to achieve by the end of 2020. The remaining 5% will be the window opened for imported rice which would be allowed to enter the country under our commitments with the World Trade Organization (WTO).
For the record, the last harvest of the Aquino Administration was a dismal 17.8-million metric tons and the performance of the Agriculture Sector under the previous administration was an embarrassing negative -1.14%.
After one year, the Agriculture Sector under the Duterte Administration posted a 6% growth. Even if this plateaued to .2% in the first semester of this, this performance is still a lot better than the one posted by the party of the people who are now crucifying the Duterte Administration for the momentary spike in the prices of food commodities in the market.
I have a better suggestion to the legislators who were in that press conference yesterday: Why don’t you come up with legislations to give more support to Agriculture and Fisheries?
Why don’t you fight for a bigger budget for the Department of Agriculture, instead?
If you embrace that advocacy, you would look better to the Filipino people. As it is now, it is blatantly clear that you are just using the rice and the Galunggong issue to gain points for the next elections.
Let me repeat: Indeed, the price of rice spiked as a result of the delayed arrival of the NFA and imported rice but there is NO RICE CRISIS.
In fact, there are no violent dispersals of rallies of hungry farmers begging for rice who received bullets instead.
(The video attached here was taken during the bloody dispersal of hungry farmers asking for rice in Kidapawan City on April 1, 2016.) Christopher Bong Go
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