ANGELES CITY — In time for the celebration of World Rural Women’s Day and World Food Day, women’s groups said yesterday they have gathered 11,203 signatures so far in their campaign dubbed “Pirma Laban sa RA 11203” or the Rice Liberalization Law.
The groups said more are expected to sign the petition which will be submitted to both houses of Congress this November 4 upon the resumption of their regular session.
The National Federation of Peasant Women (Amihan), the Gabriela Women’s Party and the consumer group Bantay Bigas, describing the law as “pasakit sa bayan” (burden to the country), said in a common statement that Filipino women are “in the frontline of hunger” and are “direct victims of the Rice Liberalization Law.”
Amihan national chair Zenaida Soriano said the law has “resulted in the drop of palay farmgate price and for the absence of affordable rice in the market.”
“There are reports of school children staying away from school because their families do not even have rice to eat. This is an indication there are those who can’t still afford the prevailing price of rice in the market. They still are in want of rice costing P27 per kilo as it used to,” Soriano said.
Monitoring done recently by Amihan and Bantay Bigas revealed that the cheapest retail rice prices range from P33 to P36 but “these are usually of low quality.”
Bantay Bigas spokesperson and Anakpawis Partylist deputy secretary general Cathy Estavillo said “the recent lowering of rice prices would be temporary. In the long term, rice prices would shoot up because of limited supply in the world market, lack of government control over rice trading and monopolistic control of the private sector on the prices and supply of rice in local markets.”
“The Duterte government’s measure to this rice law is frustrating as it is both turtle-paced and palliative,” Estavillo noted.
Estavillo said that “the deferral of the proposed increase in tariff on rice was an expected outcome as Duterte and his economic managers were the ones who actively pushed for the enactment of the law and it requires series of renegotiation with the country’s trade partners.”
She said the signature campaign against the Rice Liberalization Law would continue until the law had been suspended.
This, even as Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas said that she, along with fellow Makabayan Coalition representatives, “will actively support the interests and welfare of various rice stakeholders which has been the reason why they have filed House Bill 476 which seeks to repeal RA 11203 and House Bill 477 or the Rice Industry Development Act which upholds that the country should ensure food security based on self-reliance and self-sufficiency and not on importation.”
The groups will be holding series of protests as part of the October Peasant Month including a protest on October 15 to mark the World Rural Women’s Day and a simultaneous petition signing and protests nationwide on October 16 in time of the celebration of World Food Day.
