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THE overall chairman of the Murang Pagkain Supercommittees at the House of Representatives lamented that the “biggest agricultural price manipulation case,” involving alleged rice importation anomalies during the Duterte administration that cost Filipino consumers billions, has remained unresolved.

During the hearing of the Murang Pagkain Supercommittee last Tuesday, Albay Rep. Jose Clemente “Joey” Salceda said the 2016-2018 rice price manipulation, which forced the Congress to enact the Rice Tariffication Law in 2019, remains the single largest incident of mass-scale price manipulation in the country’s recent history.

He emphasized that during this period, private importers cornered import permits, leading to a sharp spike in rice prices, saying by 2018, Filipino consumers were paying up to P8 more per kilo, translating to a total economic loss of P88.6 billion in 2018 alone and P163.6 billion over the entire period.

Consumers may have lost as much as P88 billion in 2018, and as much as P163.6 billion in increased consumer prices of rice in total over that period—highway robbery by the privileged few that were allowed to import rice during the period,” he said.

Salceda noted that the National Food Authority (NFA), under Duterte-appointed Administrator Jason Aquino, diverted P5 billion meant for palay procurement to loan payments, effectively weakening the agency’s capacity to stabilize rice prices.

“At the time, around 89 percent of rice inventories were held by the private sector. The signs of cartel activity were clear—import permits were cornered, private stocks built up, and prices allowed to rise,” Salceda explained. “It does not take a genius to see that the resulting price crisis was deliberately concocted.”

He also pointed to allegations of a P2-billion bribery scheme within the NFA, where certain officials allegedly accepted bribes in exchange for controlling rice import permits.

“No one has gone to jail on allegations of bribery in obtaining import permits or for the NFA’s failure to undercut cartels by diverting funds,” Salceda said. “What happened to the charges that then-Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said would be filed in 2018?”

Salceda requested the Committee Secretariat to send letters to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of the Ombudsman to determine the status of any cases filed against officials implicated in the rice price manipulation scandal.

He also called for letters to the NFA to obtain a list of individuals and corporations granted rice import permits from 2016 to 2018 and to the Bureau of Customs for detailed records of rice import arrivals during the same period.

“We reserve the right to invoke subpoena powers to secure these documents,” Salceda stressed.

Salceda expressed concern that some of the individuals involved in the 2016-2018 rice price manipulation might still be active in the industry.

“Rice prices in the world market have already decreased by 14 percent, and the tariff reduction from 35 percent to 15 percent should have lowered the landed cost of imports by 34 percent,” he said. “Yet, rice retail prices have increased by 9 percent year on year. This is impossible without cartel-like behavior.”

While rice prices have decreased by 40 centavos per kilo since the tariff reduction in July, Salceda argued that this is insufficient.

“The same bad actors from 2016-2018 are still on the loose, and I suspect they’re still in business,” he said.

Salceda also questioned whether the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act is enough to prevent future price manipulation schemes and called for better enforcement to dismantle cartels in the rice sector.

“The more important concern for me as a policymaker is this: Are the same people who were involved in this mess still in the rice trade? Is there anything we can do to finally break this network down?”

The Murang Pagkain Supercommittee was created through House Resolution 254, introduced by Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez. It consolidates the efforts of key House committees—Ways and Means, Trade and Industry, Agriculture and Food, Social Services, and the Special Committee on Food Security—to address issues in the food supply chain, including price manipulation, smuggling, and hunger.

Source : businessmirror