Rice Tariffication Law is not a Viable Effort for the Philippines to Progress

The Philippines came to be self-sufficient in rice in the year 1970s. The country was also

a rice exporter to neighboring countries including Indonesia, China and Myanmar. However,

according to Tobias (2019) “with the rapid increase in population and limited rice equipment, the

country slowly turned into a net rice importer.” Just recently, a new law concerning rice was

signed on February 15, 2019 which took effect last March 5, 2019 by President Duterte. The

Rice Tariffication Law also know as Rice Liberalization Act or Republic Act No. 11203 is an act

liberalizing the importation, exportation, and trading of rice, lifting for the purpose the

quantitative import restriction on rice, and for other purposes. This law was signed for the

purpose of cutting rice prices because there has been price hikes recorded that caused rice to hit

P70 per kilo last 2018 (Ichimura, 2019). I believe that the Rice Tariffication Law does not really

help the Philippines to progress but rather it just hurt the livelihood of many Filipino farmers.

Due to the Rice Tariffication Law, the restrictions on rice importation was removed. As a result,

there has been a greater supply of rice from different country which caused the prices of rice to

lower down. This law can be beneficial to consumer however this is a burden to many of the

local farmers.

The implementation of Rice Tariffication Law exemplifies the system of free trade

wherein products from different countries are traded on the global market without tariffs and

quotas provided by the restrictions of the economic policies. This was the way found by the

government to put an end to the rising inflation faced by the country on the last quarter of 2018.

According to Polychroniou (2017) globalization benefits everyone yet it produces winners and

losers. In this case, consumers and the government were considered as the winners while the

local farmers are the losers. Why? Because the aim of the government to have stable and lower

prices of rice was achieved. This also is a good opportunity for the consumers because they have

to pay lower than the other years. On the other hand, local farmers were at loss. Without any

restrictions on the rice imports, traders have imported cheaper rice, thus competing with local

rice producers. Thousands of Filipino farmers are into rice planting. This is where they get
money to buy their basic necessities yet they only sell it for P7 per kilo as the lowest after

thousands of money they spent for it. This shows that farmers lose half of their capital or worse

all of it as a consequence of non-stop rains and inevitable flooding. According to Pascual (2019)

“Farmers are at a complete loss since the cost of producing a kilo of palay is placed at P12.” Our

local farmers were in danger because of the competition in the market created by the absence of

restriction on rice imports. Isn’t ironic how these farmers feed people in our country yet they are

the one who cannot eat three times a day? I have seen a lot of farmers who were greatly affected

by this unfortunate ruling as they narrate their situations. As what Polychroniou (2017) stated

that “Even if the country gains overall from globalization, there will always be losers, especially

workers who have skills that are not valued anymore.”

It is painful how Senator Cynthia Villar belittle our farmers when she said that farmers

from our neighboring countries are more competitive than our local farmers. Moreover, our

lawmakers are still in doubt about the data that shows the grave economical losses of these

farmers (Pascual, 2019). Do we still need to wonder why farmers are among the poorest in our

country? There is now a clear answer and that is our farmers are undervalued. The services of

our farmers cannot be measured out as they have sacrificed a lot just to give their countrymen

food to eat. But what they have received in return is the lack of attention and appreciation from

the government.

Much as the Rice Tariffication Law target to lower down the price of rice, government

should also consider the importance to secure the local rice production. On the contrary, the

outcome will be an increase on the poverty rate in the country. It is unfair for the farmers who

are in the rice industry to work and still gain nothing from it. According to Chang to control the

adverse effect of globalization, we should have a more controlled form of globalization which is

based on more restrictions (Polychroniou, 2017). It should be noted that there will still be losers

and winners even with these restrictions, thus we need to have a stronger welfare state through

which the losers from the process get compensated (Polychroniou, 2017).