The Philippines’ 2.5 million rice farmers are threatening mass protests over what they call the administration’s failure to address “plummeting” rice prices, which they say have driven them deeper into poverty.
The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) and the MAGSASAKA Party-List issued the warning, blaming the steep price drop on massive rice importation that resulted from the Rice Tariffication Law enacted in 2019.
“This situation was worsened by the 57 percent cut in rice tariffs in July 2024 and the 40 percent decline in global rice prices since last year,” said former agriculture secretary and FFF chairman Leonardo Montemayor and MAGSASAKA chairman Argel Joseph Cabatbat in a joint statement.
Montemayor said the government had downplayed its own data, which he claimed showed that government policies had failed to lower retail rice prices for consumers while driving farmgate prices below production costs.
He projected that for 2025 alone, farmers’ collective incomes are projected to drop by about P43 billion. Montemayor also lamented that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ignored repeated requests from farmers’ groups for a dialogue.
Cabatbat, a former MAGSASAKA representative in the 18th Congress, reiterated calls for the immediate imposition of additional tariffs under the Safeguard Measures Act to stem the continued decline in rice prices.
He said that Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel, Jr. has yet to comply with the law’s requirement to conduct a preliminary investigation within five days of receiving the joint petition filed by FFF and MAGSASAKA on September 29.
“The temporary suspension of rice imports since September two has had little effect on palay prices. They remain low because traders expect cheap, low-tariff imports to resume when the ban is lifted before yearend,” Cabatbat said.
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