Militants slam lifting of rice import quotas

By Jerome Aning

Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 22:40:00 04/08/2008

MANILA, Philippines -- Militant groups on Tuesday attacked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s decision to lift rice import quota as a way to ease the rice shortage the country is reportedly experiencing.

The farmers group Kilusang Mayo Uno said that removing the quota would benefit only the rice cartel, which KMP claims is behind the rice supply shortage and is allegedly manipulating prices.

KMP chair Rafael Mariano explained that even with the quota of 300,000 metric tons of rice, the private sector only imported less than 10 percent of that volume over the past two years because of high world prices and local tariffs on imports.

The lifting of the quota would only “entrench” the cartel, which would resort to smuggling to continue manipulating the supply and price of rice.

“By lifting the rice import quotas, the cartel will have all the chance to legalize their rice smuggling operations. It is as if Ms Arroyo declared the rice industry as an exclusive zone for the cartel; because of the current rice crisis in the world only the cartel has that much money to buy rice from the international market,” he said in a statement.

The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan called the lifting of the quota “a step in the wrong direction that will aggravate the rice crisis.”

Like KMP’s Mariano, Bayan information officer Arnold Padilla argued that lifting the quota will not result in cheaper retail prices for consumers because rice imports were in fact more expensive now than local rice.

“At current global prices, plus freight costs and tariffs, imported rice could cost an average of more than P40 per kilo. Worse, because more imported rice will now end in the hands of private traders, they will be in a stronger position to manipulate domestic supply and prices at the expense of hapless consumers. The end result is more expensive retail prices,” Padilla said.

Mariano said it was ironic that the Philippines had to get its rice supply from abroad when the country has all the grain to feed its population.

“These moves of the regime are further pushing us into dependency on other countries and are inimical to true food security. We are almost becoming beggars of a staple that we can amply produce ourselves. Is this what Ms Arroyo calls rice self-sufficiency when the Philippines haggles for rice in the world market?” Mariano said.



KMP said the immediate solution to the current rice crisis was for the NFA to increase its procurement of local rice to at least 25 percent of the total harvest. To date, NFA purchases only one percent of the total local rice production.

“Remember that one of the reasons why local prices are escalating rapidly is the negligible intervention of the NFA as it accounts for only less than one percent of the of the domestic rice market. Furthermore, around 98 percent of the rice that the NFA uses to intervene in the market is imported”, Padilla pointed out.

Bayan said there was also an “immediate” need for the NFA to substantially increase its intervention in the rice market, including in the procurement and distribution of rice.

Allowing private traders to import an unlimited volume of rice, “will further undermine the already insignificant role that the government plays in ensuring local rice supply and reasonable prices,” Paadilla said.

Bayan also lamented that lifting of the rice quota showed the overall policy direction of the Arroyo government in terms of agricultural development, which is to rely on imports instead of promoting local food production for local consumption.

“It has exposed Arroyo’s earlier pronouncements on improving farm productivity and achieving self-sufficiency in rice as empty rhetoric,” Padilla said.

The group noted that the President said last week that food security does not mean self-sufficiency.

“For Ms Arroyo, there is no need to produce locally what the country can import from the world market, even if it is the staple food of most Filipinos. Such distorted concept of food security has exposed our people to the raging rice crisis,” said Padilla.