MANGALDAN NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

Mangaldan, Pangasinan
S.Y. 2019-2020
Senior High School Deparment

POSITION PAPER: English for Academic and Professional Purposes

For millions of Filipinos, rice is the staple food choice. Filipino meals cannot be
completed without the rice serve with a dish. Rice has taken the tongue of every Filipino from
breakfast, lunch, dinner and even for merienda. Data from the 2019 Agricultural Indicators
System: Food Consumption and Nutrition Report of the PSA indicate that rice contributed the
highest content of calories and protein to the average Filipino’s daily food intake in 2018. It was
the top source of calories, contributing 1,162.09 grams per person per day. Making it one of the
top most allocated budget of every Filipino Family. To make it more affordable government
implement the rice tariffication law to lower the price of the rice but causes negative effect to the
farmers.

The Rice Tariffication Law titled “An Act liberalizing the importation, exportation, and
trading of rice, lifting for the purpose the quantitative import restriction on rice, and for other
purposes” was signed into law by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte on February 14, 2019. This is
also known as the Rice Liberalization Act or Republic Act No. 11203, which amends the
Agricultural Tariffication Act of 1996 that imposed tariff to agricultural imports except for rice.
Primarily, the law aims to lift the quantitative restriction (QR) on rice imports and replace it with
a general tariff. The Agricultural Tariffication Act of 1996 served as the Philippine
government’s compliance to our obligation to WTO, lifting QRs and imposing tariff to
agricultural products. The law aims to protect local farmers from the entry of more imported rice
into the country through the imposition of 35% tariff on rice coming from member-countries of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) like Thailand and Vietnam. For non-
ASEAN countries, 50% tariff is imposed. The collected tariffs will be used to fund mass
irrigation, warehousing, and rice research. According to Sec. of Department of Agriculture
Manny Piñol the primary benefit of this law is to lower the price of rice by allowing the imported
rice to the market.

The law opens the country to the unlimited number of rice imported to our country but
there will be increase on the tariff that the importers will pay. The collected tariffs will be
distributed for the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund or Rice Fund where there will be
allotted 10 Billion pesos for the improvement of rice production in the country. Which they say
that will benefit the farmers but really not. The law just keep dragging down the agricultural
sector due to the difficulties to compete in the low price of rice provided by the importer. The
farmers are force to sell their rice also in low price resulting to loss of the farmers. There will be
also no assurance that the Rice Fund will benefited the farmers. The primary goal also of this law
to lower the price of rice is not secure as the Private companies or the traders are the one who is
pricing their rice because the law remove the power of National Food Authority to mandate the
price of rice in the market.

Farmer groups clamor that the new law will make them compete with cheap rice imports,
making them more penniless. Measures should be in place to ensure that Filipino farmers will
not suffer with the rice tariffication law and that "safety nets" are available for farmers. While it
has its good points, the lack of government regulation worries stakeholders.

National farmers’ group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) estimates that some
500,000 of 2.4 million rice farmers will be adversely affected should the Philippines import an
annual average of two million metric tons (MT) of palay. Rice was the major crop that was first
subjected to share tenancy and land reforms in the country. Almost a century later it continues to
account for 23% of the land acquisition and distribution balance of the failed Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) of the Philippine government, as of last count before Duterte
took office. Most farmers who are awarded land to till are failing to amortize and forced to
borrow capital in rice production and even for household expenses at usurious rates. Filipino rice
farmers often borrow from rice traders and big landlords. They also rent threshers and harvesters
from equipment owners who are usually also their palay buyers.

The RCEF is more about subsidizing the equipment, seed and chemicals already being
peddled to rice farmers by private-sector money-makers in partnership with government. For
example, the World Bank-sponsored Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) with the DA
“supports” farmers’ associations with implements on credit. RCEF may simply facilitate how
farmers should repay this.

There is no genuine land distribution, nor comprehensive support for rice farmers for
them to significantly raise their incomes. Rice tariffication will not put an end to – but only
prolong – farmers’ landlessness and poverty, which abusive traders have taken advantage of and
will further flourish from upon the rice sector’s further liberalization.

Rice tariffication will institutionalize private traders and cartels. They will now be on top
of buying and selling rice, importing as much as they want and setting the price. This, due to the
removal of government’s erstwhile regulatory or price-stabilizing mandate through the NFA.
Instead of unleashing the potential of the country as rice producer, rice tariffication has turned
the grains sector into a trading one at the expense of farmers and the country’s food security.
 Additionally, government has not been able to control the price of imported rice when
sold in the local market because it does not have active production monitoring and price
regulatory mechanisms in place. For instance, the National Food Authority’s (NFA) procurement
price of Php17 per kilo has not increased since 2007. The government has also not increased
subsidies for the problematic agency. A Commission on Audit (COA) report showed that in
2017, the NFA accomplished only 18.6% of its target and even diverted its Php5.1 billion Food
Security Program budget to pay maturing debts. The NFA failed to buy rice at competitive
farmgate prices, sell cheap local rice to the domestic market and ensure sufficient local supply.

As recommendation the government should focus in the support subsidy they are giving
on the farmers. The assurance that the rice of the farms are going to buy by the government to
have proper income recognizing the production cost by each farmer to lessen the commercial
retailer outsmart the local farmers. Provide security to the land that farmers using to plant and
secure no land use conversion from them have more space to produce right amount of rice. They
also implement that there will be no importation of rice during the harvesting of the local
farmers. To easily sell their rice to the market. The quantity of rice imported should fill in the
needed supply not to over import imported rice to the market that will cause competition and kill
the rice of local farmers.

Sources:

Philippine Statistic Authority(2019). Agricultural Indicators System.[pdf]. Retrieved

House of Representatives. An Act liberalizing the importation, exportation, and trading of

Ibon Media (2019). Three things beyond rice tariffication. Retrieved from
https://www.ibon.org/three-things-beyond-rice-tariffication/