📷pna.gov.ph
Finance Secretary Ralph Recto on Wednesday backed the proposed amendments to the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) to ensure the National Food Authority (NFA) debts will not surge.
In a media interview with Finance reporters, Recto said there could be room for minor adjustments in the RTL while the current law generally functions as intended.
“We’re studying it right now,” Recto said, indicating that the department is still evaluating the full implications of any changes.
“We do have a position. But so far, I think the RTL is working. Okay. Maybe we can tweak it a bit to allow NFA (to buy and sell for) emergency purposes. With the tweaking, we will make sure that the debts of NFA do not balloon,” he added.
The NFA racked up a P140 billion debt in 2018 due to the “cost of government’s commitment and policy to make rice available, affordable, and accessible to the poor and marginalized sectors, and to stabilize palay and rice supply and prices at the farm and consumer levels.”
The company’s net loss dropped from P15.44 billion under the RTL to P9.6 billion in 2021, a 38 percent decline, according to figures from the finance department.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said last week that he was open to making the suggested changes to the RTL urgent because traders were making rice more expensive.
The farmgate price of palay climbed to P24.06 per kilogram during the first quarter, up 6.7% from P22.56 per kilogram recorded the previous quarter, according to statistics from the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Palay production increased by 5.0 percent to 5.23 million metric tons from 4.98 million metric tons in the previous quarter.
Republic Act No. 11203, often known as the RTL, established the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF), which is financed by the tariff receipts, and replaced the quantitative limitations on imported rice with duties ranging from 35% to 40%. The RTL went into force on March 5, 2019.
In order to guarantee that emergency rice supplies were only obtained from nearby palay farms, the RTL also restricted the NFA’s ability to act as a rice buffer stocking organization. (TCSP)
