The political economy of rice farming

Rice, along with corn, is the main staple of the Filipinos. In average, a Filipino consumes about 100 kilos
of rice a year. That would be about two kilos per week.
An examination of the artifacts unearth in Cagayan Valley by Shutler implies that rice must have been
produced in the Philippines since 3000 years ago. A living testimony to this is the Banawe Rice terraces. It is
estimated to have been constructed more than 2000 years ago.
As the saying goes in the Philippines, the rise and fall of the Philippine president goes with the rise fall of the
price of rice. This may be true until today as seen by how President Duterte did not wait long to sign the Rice
Tariffication Law. Through this law, rice is now allowed to be imported freely and sold locally after payment of
the 35 percent import tax to stabilize the price of rise.
The price of rice surged last year to more than P50.00 per kilo for some varieties. With the Rice Tariffication
Law, however, we now find our local rice farmers complaining of the drastic drop in the farm gate price of
palay, which is not commensurate to the drop in the retail price of rice.

Data from Philippine Statistics year, the farm gate price of palay dropped by 20.9 percent to P17.62 per
kilo from P22.28 per kilo in the same week last year. In the same period before in 2017, the farm gate price of
a kilo of palay was recorded at P19.63.Authority (PSA) shows that as of the second week of August this
Lately though, some areas in the country has reported that the farm gate price of their palay have already
gone down below P10.00 per kilo or even lower to P7.00 pesos per kilo.
This compares with the PSA monitored retail price of well-milled rice which dropped only by 7.3 percent from
P46.06 in the second week of August last year to P42.71 in the same week this year.
The common estimate of palay production cost is P12.00 per kilo. If this is true and the P17.62 farm gate price
of palay as reported by the PSA is also true, then the gross margin per kilo that goes to the farmers is only
P5.62 per kilo. How much is that in total income to the farmer per harvest season or its equivalent annually
and monthly?
The answer depends on the area planted and harvested and the total number of kilos or tons of palay
harvested by the farmer per cropping season.

Based on 2013 PSA Report on the Costs and Returns of Palay Production in the Philippines, about 84.59
percent of palay farmers in the country practiced two (2) croppings per year. One (1) cropping was adopted by
11 percent and three (3) croppings by 4.41 percent.
The average size of farm holdings nationwide was 1.63 hectares. The average area planted and harvested to
palay corresponded to 0.85 hectare and 0.84 hectare, respectively.
On the other hand, palay production averaged 3,500 kilograms per hectare.
Assuming an average of two (2) cropping seasons per year and an average of one hectare of harvested palay
per season, each palay farmer should have produced 7,000 kilos of palay annually. With the farm gate price of
P17.62 per kilo of palay and P12.00 unit cost per kilo, the palay farmer should have earned a total of P19,670
per cropping season or P39,340 annually for two cropping seasons. This is equivalent only to P3,278 in average
income per month of the farmer.
Is this amount sufficient?
Will this level of income move the farmer and his family out of poverty?
Nope! The poverty threshold in the country, as reported again by PSA, was P12,577 per capita for the first half
of 2018 or 25,154 for the whole year. For a family of five, this poverty threshold would amount to 125,770
annually per family. This is way above the total estimated income of the palay farmer based on current farm
gate price of palay and unit cost per kilo of palay.
With this predicament, it will not be long then that much of our rice fields will be converted into subdivisions,
commercial centers, or industrial park at the expense of our rice self-sufficiency or food security program.
Some lucky people must be laughing on their way to the bank but they surely are not going to be the farmers.
 NBI ORDERED TO PROBE “HOSPITAL PASS OR SALE” AT BILIBID

The Department of Justice has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to look into the alleged sale of
hospital passes to convicts of the New Bilibid Prison.

In an order dated Monday, Justice chief Menardo Guevarra directed the NBI to conduct an investigation and
case build-up into the alleged illegal practice of selling hospital passes to convicts who want to be transferred
to the New Bilibid Prison hospital to escape jail congestion.

“If evidence warrants, [the NBI is directed] to file appropriate charges against persons found responsible,” the
order read.

Guevarra also ordered NBI Director Dante Gierran to submit reports on the progress of the investigation and
case build-up.

The alleged “hospital pass for sale” came amid reports that Bureau of Corrections officials and personnel sold
good conduct time allowance credits to national penitentiary inmates who want to cut short their jail time.

GMA News reported that some convicts who faked illness and bought the so-called “hospital referral official
pass” from BuCor employees were moved to Bilibid hospital.

At least 1,900 heinous crime convicts have been released by the BuCor in the last five years based on the
application of RA 10592, the law on GCTA.

The Justice department will also order Melvin Buenafe, BuCor officer-in-charge, to serve the notices of
preventive suspension against the bureau’s 27 personnel issued by the Office of the Ombudsman. — Gaea
Katreena Cabico
 Patients die as Manila traffic jams block ambulances
MANILA - Gridlock in Manila is costing lives as ambulances stuck in traffic face severe delays
in the race against the clock to reach the city's hospitals, medics warn.

Special lanes for emergency vehicles are not enforced, the infrastructure is outdated, and local
drivers are often unwilling or unable to make way -- a situation experts say is causing patients to die
en route.

"You feel empty. It is as if you were not given a chance to do everything in your capacity to help,"
ambulance driver and paramedic Joseph Laylo told AFP.

"If the traffic was not that bad it could have saved the patient," he added, recalling how he lost a
patient when congestion tripled the time to hospital.

Even with an encyclopedic knowledge of short cuts or aggressive driving such as blasting their horns
or bumping unyielding vehicles, it is not always enough to arrive in time.

Driver Adriel Aragon is still haunted after losing a critically ill patient when it took 40 minutes to reach
the hospital -- the journey should have taken half that time.

"No matter how hard we honk, even if we use our siren, if the vehicles are not moving it doesn't
matter," he said.

"That's what happened that time," Aragon added of the 2014 tragedy.

Five minutes before they reached the hospital the woman's pulse disappeared. She was pronounced
dead after they wheeled her into the emergency room.

At peak hours, the main arteries of Manila are clogged with idling cars -- a 25-kilometer (16-mile) end
to end drive through the main highway can take as long as three hours.

Home to some 13 million, there is nearly one vehicle registered per person. The resulting gridlock
costs the city $67 million daily in lost productivity, according to a 2017 Japanese government-funded
study.

LIFE OR DEATH

Neither the government nor ambulance companies keep count of how many patients die in traffic
each year, officials said, but emergency medical workers in the city have many horror stories.

Laylo says one patient died inside his ambulance after heavy traffic on a narrow road added 10
minutes to the journey from the patient's home to the hospital.

"It was about 5.7 kilometers. Normally it would take us less than five minutes, but it took us 15
minutes that time," Laylo explained.

"When you're trying to save a person's life, that is very slow," he said, still upset by the 2017 incident.

Images of ambulances stalled in unmoving traffic jams have sparked outrage on social media in the
Philippines.
One of the most notorious examples -- which has been viewed over 3.2 million times online -- was
filmed by a woman shocked that cars wouldn't or couldn't give way to the ambulance carrying her
mother.

"I was very angry. I was worried too because we couldn't do anything about the vehicles blocking our
lane," the woman, Jing Zamora, told AFP.

The trip took hours, when it should have taken minutes. Zamora's mother, who suffered a stroke,
survived the trip to the hospital but died there a week later.

A swift medical response is key to recovery, according to the American Stroke Association.

Officials like Aldo Mayor, public safety chief of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority
(MMDA), put at least part of the blame on other road users.

"Some people simply do not care. It is as if they are the only residents of this world," said Mayor,
whose government agency manages the capital's chaotic traffic.

He added that Manila ordinances concerning emergency vehicles, including a 2017 regulation that
reserves one lane for them, are rarely enforced due to personnel constraints.

'AMBULANCES CANNOT LEVITATE'

These problems come as Manila's population has roughly doubled since 1985 and its infrastructure
has not kept up.

Its limited system of commuter rail is augmented by jeepney mini-buses and millions of cars.

The nation's thicket of bureaucracy and deep rooted corruption have stalled or blocked efforts to build
new roads, bridges and public transit.

President Rodrigo Duterte pledged to unblock the capital's choking gridlock, but halfway through his
term the city's main thoroughfare, EDSA, remains a parking lot at rush hour.

The sheer number of cars on the roads is a major factor in whether ambulances can get their patients
to hospital quickly, said Vernon Sarne, a long-time automotive journalist.

"Even when you want to give way, but the motorway is full, what can we do? The ambulance cannot
levitate," he told AFP.

However Sarne noted that drivers have become cynical, thinking ambulances might be using their
lights and sirens just to cut through the traffic for non-emergencies.

"As a motoring public we are jaded to the fact that everyone is taking advantage of us," he said,
adding some politicians use emergency vehicles escorts to avoid the gridlock.

Yet ambulance operators in Manila hope public shaming on social media, like Zamora's viral video,
can help.

"Because of social media, we found more and more people are giving way, giving (us) the benefit of
the doubt," Michael Deakin, the head of one of the nation's largest ambulance companies told AFP.