Rice Importation: Why Our Agricultural Heroes Suffer the Most

There are a lot of issues and controversies that our country faces right now. Some may be aware, but some are not. Even though I’m only seventeen years old, I could see the reality that the government is concealing from the public. One of the most recent controversies is the rice importation. First of all, why do we need to import rice in our country if our rice supply is sufficient enough? The government tells us that this would help our farmers but if you observe what’s really happening, our farmers are suffering. This action was supported by a law signed by the president and it states a greater amount of tax in exchange for the importation in our country instead of limiting the amount of rice that will enter our place. The government stated that the collected tariffs will be for the farmers, but they just went again onto the hands of the corrupt officials. Corruption, which just started from false promises, resulted into a greater suffering and sacrifice of the farmers. Lastly, the one being in a tight spot right now is Cynthia Villar, who works in the agricultural field for years already, is also the one who seems to be blind about the farmers that seek for help.

In rice importation, supplies of rice from foreign or external sources are being brought into a country. Just like what we are currently experiencing in the Philippines, we receive an influx of importers. Due to rice importation, we get the chance to have the diverse types of rice from other countries and it is also expected that the prices of our rice would go down and according to our government, our farmers will become more competitive. In contrary to those, the importation and its enlargement caused our farmers to suffer more because imported rice dominates until our local supplies are being left behind. More and more people are buying imported rice without noticing that we have sufficient local rice supplies in our country. Just like the expectations in the price rate of rice, it may have decreased but it still did not reach the targeted price. We still experience to buy rice at a little bit expensive rate because of the taxes that we, citizens, pay. In addition to this, the decrease in prices causes the farmers to become more worried and affected because the value of the local rice and income of the local agricultural workers will depreciate. If you look at it in a different angle, why do we have rice importation? What our administration states is that to have our rice shortage problem solved and also to help our farmers. Though the news about rice shortage was already widespread, I am not persuaded enough to believe it because we have a lot of agricultural lands in our country. I think the news about rice shortage was just a misconception. Rice is also our staple crop, meaning it is abundant in the Philippines. How could we have a rice shortage if that is our staple crop and we have a lot of agricultural lands? They could possibly use that reason to cover up their hidden agenda as they collect new taxes and some officials may use it for their own selves instead of giving it to the farmers.

Rice importation would not flourish that much in our country without a law that allows it to occur in our country. This already occurs in our country before it became more prevalent in the present year. Our current president, President Duterte just signed Republic Act No. 11203 on Thursday, February 14, 2019. Its formal name is ‘An Act liberalizing the importation, exportation, and trading of rice, lifting for the purpose the quantitative import restriction on rice’. The purpose of this law is to amend Republic Act (RA) No. 8178 or the Agricultural Tariffication Act of 1996 and replace the Quantitative Restriction (QR) on rice imports. Instead of setting a limitation on how much rice will enter our country, the importers will just be needing to pay a tax in order to bring their rice supply in our country. According to the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Trade in Goods Agreement, rice from Southeast Asian countries will pay a 35% tariff or the import duty rate commitment of the Philippines for rice importation. While for the Non-ASEAN members, the tariff would be a 50% or the tariff equivalent calculated in accordance with the agreement of World Trade Organization on agriculture. Here, the tariffs that will be collected will serve as the fund for the farmers to support them in the agricultural field. In my opinion, I do not agree with the Rice Tariffication Law because I would still prefer the Quantitative Restriction (QR) on rice imports because our country is being left behind in the agricultural field in which we truly deserve to be known at. In terms of rice production, our country is flourishing and even in other crop production. This law also liberalized the other countries that may cause some threat or take advantage to make their supplies more available and more patronized than our own local rice production.

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From the promise that the taxes that will be collected will go to the fund for supporting the farmers, these agricultural heroes still don’t feel the ease and support that the administration has promised to them. If you check the different point of views of the interviewed farmers, they would ask where did those funds go and even question the government why do they experience to suffer the most if they are ones who work hard for the rice supply. How can this Rice Tariffication Law trigger corruption? It can hugely trigger corruption because of the selfish acts of other officials. Since this law has an increased amount of tax to the different foreign importers, the more tempting it would become to the sinister officials that crave for money like they had never earned even a single penny in their whole lives. It could also be possible that the reason why they implemented this law is to make their hidden agenda happen by filching funds and save them in their dummy bank accounts. These selfish acts of some officials cause our farmers to suffer some more. These double the pain that they are feeling because aside from the physical pain that they experience in farming, they also feel least important to the leaders that they expect to save them and their rights. Though they are the main producers of rice supplies, they still feel disregarded and these wrongdoings of our officials also add to their burdens. Their families also sacrifice and suffer because of the small amount they earn which they do not deserve because they should be earning a higher amount. I hope this somehow reminds you of how important to finish what is on our plate because of the farmers who work hard and also, not all people experience to eat within a day.

Are you familiar with the current issue that includes Cynthia Villar? If you do not know her, she is the wife of Manny Villar and both of them are known in different businesses and also became senators. We know that Cynthia Villar works currently as a senator in an agricultural field of the government and had held some positions in the agricultural committees in the past years, but did you know that she just recently rejected the request of the farmers to at least increase the amount of rice grain per kilogram? She said that it was already too much for the farmers to ask for the amount of rice grain per kilogram to be sold at 21 pesos.

She is also the principal author of the Rice Tariffication Law that I mentioned and explained in the third paragraph. She said it was for the good of the farmers, but why are they still suffering? Is there a hidden agendum why she proposed it? What I can visualize here, since she is a real estate developer and a businesswoman, it is possible for her to use this law to coerce the farmers sell their agricultural lands to real estate developers. In return, the farmers have no choice but to accept the money offered in exchange for their agricultural land that they own just to survive and provide for their families. The real estate developers will soon turn these agricultural lands into residential areas which they can use in their business.

In conclusion, rice importation is not that much needed in our country because we just need to pay attention to our local rice supplies. We need to save our local workers and our local source of rice before it totally gets dominated by foreign rice sources. This does not help much our farmers because it causes them to fear the decrease in the prices and value of local rice which would make them suffer in selling every rice grain. In order to support our local farmers, Rice Tariffication Law replaced the Quantitative Restriction (QR) in rice imports that would set higher amount of tax to the foreign importers. The tariffs that will be collected will go to the funds supporting the farmers. For the good of all, the taxes collected should be fairly distributed though the target amount of found was not yet reached. Our agricultural heroes would be given a huge relief if our officials would not be filching anything from the funds. Corruption doubles the pain that the farmers experience. Political officials should stop using flowery statements that would make people set high hopes on what we say because mostly, they are the ones who suffer the most making them regret the decision to trust the leaders they have chosen. Cynthia Villar, as the principal author of the Rice Tariffication Law, should be open and considerate enough to the rights that our local farmers really deserve. Though she is businesswoman, she should remind herself that it is part of being someone who works in the government to consider and fight for what your fellowmen are asking for help. All in all, I may not be an expert in this field but I know I can see and contribute in my own small ways as an individual. Let us not be foolish to find outside what is obviously abundant on the inside.