ILOILO – The 14th Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) of this province passed a resolution requesting President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. to halt the importation and sale of imported rice, especially during the harvest season.
During yesterday’s regular session, 3rd District Provincial Board member Matt Palabrica, principal sponsor, said he came up with this resolution after receiving reports from farmers that prices of palay are at P12 to P14 per kilogram for the months of August and September, and possibly until October, which are within the harvest season.
The said price range is significantly lower compared to the prices of palay in April and May at P19 to P22 per kilogram.
“The price of newly harvested rice or palay dropped from P19 to P22 per kilo in April and May to P12 to P14 per kilo in Iloilo starting August,” according to Palabrica.
He believes the main reason for this is the presence of imported rice in the market, particularly mentioning the 38,400 metric tons (MT) of imported rice from Vietnam that entered the Iloilo Port just recently.
“The Manila Times published that 38,400 metric tons of imported rice have been off-loaded in the Iloilo Port, valued at more than P1 billion and additional thousands of metric tons continue to be unloaded recently,” Palabrica said.
“This volume, when dumped into the markets of the province and city, would greatly affect the incomes of a large segment of the rice-growing economy of the province; it would bring down the price of newly harvested rice or palay to way below the production cost,” emphasized the Provincial Board member.
He added, “Iloilo province is mainly a rice producing economy and this volume of imported rice will greatly affect the livelihood of the already suffering rice farmers, bringing further economic disaster already broken by the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.”
The Provincial Board member said he is concerned that, if this continues, local farmers will not be able to gain profit, let alone pay production costs due to low palay prices during the harvest season.
Palabrica believes the President can make this possible, especially since he is the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, the government agency that oversees rice importation.
“As president of the republic, I know he can do something better for the sake of the rice farmers nga ang tinutuyo ta tani during harvest season nga biskan indi na lang sila (referring to importers) mag-compete sa aton local farmers,” added Palabrica./PN
