ANGELES CITY – For this Christmas, an ear for 50,000 signatures seeking repeal of Republic Act 11203 or the Rice Liberalization Law.
This was the appeal jointly issued yesterday by the consumer group Bantay Bigas and the National Federation of Peasant Women (Amihan) to Congress before it adjourns for Christmas, after they submitted a petition titled “Petisyon ng Mamamayan Laban sa RA 11203 Rice Liberalization Law” with the signatures of some 50,000 supporters, mostly farmers.
The petition cited particularly Senate President Vicente Sotto III and opposition Sen. Francis Pangilinan whom it asked “to act on the collective sentiment of more than 50,000 signatories.”
“Our wish is for the senators to be moved and heed the demand of Filipino peasants and poor consumers to repeal the Rice Liberalization Law pushed by Senator Cynthia Villar,” Bantay Bigas spokesperson and Amihan secretary-general Cathy Estavillo.
The groups initiated the signing of the petition less than a month ago.
“The senators should contemplate that many signed the petition in less than a month, indicating a broad opposition of the people to RA 11203. If they want to earn the approval of farmers and poor consumers across the country, they should repeal the law or also bear the mounting people’s dissent,” she said.
Estavillo said that while the signed petition was already submitted to Congress, more signatures are still being gathered, as she expressed confidence that hundreds of thousands could be gathered by February next year to coincide with the first anniversary of the controversial law of Villar.
“It is public knowledge that RA 11203 is economic sabotage of the rice sector, primarily triggering depressed farm gate prices as low as P7 per kilo this year, although the retail prices never dropped accordingly. The winners from this law are the private traders and importers, and the big losers are the farmers and consumers,” she lamented.
Estavillo warned that “farm gate prices for the harvest period for the dry season next year would be the end-gamer for the law.”
“A repeat of the low farm gate prices during the dry season will be fatal to farmers. No bandaid solution can salvage them from the deepening state of bankruptcy unless the law is repealed soon,” she also said.
Bantay Bigas and Amihan also urged the senators to author their version of the House Bill 477 Rice Industry Development Act (RIDA) which was authored at the House by Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas and other lawmakers under the Makabayan bloc. The proposal pushes a near P500-billion three-year “national and democratic rice development program and upholds national food security based on self-sufficiency and self-reliance.”
“We are at a historical transition period, when neoliberal bureaucrats are transforming our society from a rice-producing to beggars of imported rice. To destroy the country’s rice production and to totally rely on imports is a moral crime against the next generation Filipinos. We must defend the Philippine rice industry this very moment and urgently repeal the Rice Liberalization Law,” Estavillo also said.
