ANGELES CITY – The price of rice was reported to have increased anew the other day by P3 to P4 per kilo and the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) blamed this on the “inaction and ineptitude” of the Department
of Agriculture (DA).
“The price of rice is steadily increasing for almost two months now and the DA has done nothing to pull down, stabilize, and control prices,” said KMP Secretary General Antonio Flores.
The KMP noted that as of the other day, the retail price of rice in most local markets was pegged at P35 to P37 per kilo, up from P32 to P34 per kilo during the first round of price increases in early July.
The KMP reported that last week, rice millers at Intercity, the biggest warehouse and mill of alleged rice cartels in Central Luzon, was reported to have closed down reportedly due to palay shortage and high prices of palay from the North, particularly from the provinces of Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija, Isabela, and Cagayan.
“In the face of all these, all we can hear from (Agriculture Sec. Proceso) Alcala and his officials is that the country
has enough supply of rice and that ‘the increase should not exceed P1to P2 due to the lean months,” Flores noted.
“There has been no solution proposed and the Aquino government has proved inutile in the series of increases in the price of rice. The government seems helpless against the rice cartels,” he lamented.
Flores said “this lame excuse by Alcala serves the interests of rice cartels.” “The Aquino administration
has turned the DA into a symbol of national shame. It is filled with corrupt and inept officials,” he added, even as
he noted the DA”s “pork barrel scam notoriety.”
Flores said that “last week’s report on the artifi cial palay shortage was obviously meant to justify rice price increases and massive rice importation.”
“The artificial palay shortage and the rice price increases clearly demonstrate the manipulations by rice cartels
to justify a massive and corruption-tainted rice importation policy,” Flores added.
The KMP reported that in the provinces of Isabela and Pangasinan, the latest buying price of traders for “newly harvested or wet palay” was at P16-17 per kilo while prices of “dry palay” was P20-22 per kilo. In Bulacan, the price of dry palay was at P24 per kilo.
But he noted that in Mindoro Occidental, prices of wet palay remain at P12-P14 while dry palay was P16. In Laguna, palay prices were still nailed at P13-P14 per kilo. In the Visayas and Mindano, the buying price of palay was still at P17 per kilo.
“The high prices of dry palay in Pangasinan and Isabela and the seemingly uniform prices in other regions not
only shows the disparity in prices but exposes the manipulative hands of rice cartels,” Flores said. Flores said that “those who profi t from the P22 to P24 per kilo price of dry palay are big landlords and not farmers.”
“At present, the bulk of dry palay are now centralized at the hands of rice cartels and big landlords. They are the ones capable of hoarding palay and are the main culprits in the skyrocketing prices of rice,” he added.
The KM said the government is allowing 350,000 metric tons (MT) of rice to enter the country annually at reduced
tariff rate of 40 percent, while shipments outside Minimum Access Volume (MAV) pay higher rates.
“The 187,000 MT imported last April that was allegedly overpriced was under the omnibus MAV for rice. The
balance of 163,000 MT shall be imported under the MAV-country specific quota as specified under the World Trade Organization agreement,” the KMP also said
