When the Senate approved the Rice Trade Liberalization (RTL) law, its champions led by Sen. Cynthia Villar bleated that the huge tariffs to be amassed from the tariffs to be paid by importers would “enhance” Philippine agriculture and make rice farmers more competitive.
In short, the RTL would have to increase the volume of legitimate rice shipments to generate higher tariffs to finance the “modernization” of the rice industry. It means making rice farmers competitive through the deluge of rice from Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan and other countries, including the US, which is already a major exporter. This doesn’t make sense. It equates to killing farmers since they are not subsidized like the Vietnamese and Thai farmers, or the rice cultivators of India and Pakistan.
RTL created the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) purportedly to improve the competitiveness of rice farmers and raise their incomes as the government lifted quantitative restrictions on rice imports and replaced them with tariffs. Villar and her colleagues crafted a piece of legislation that subverted the interest of the farming sector, choked rice producers and laid to waste the huge investment of the industry, from the farmers to the millers, wholesalers and retailers.
Much to the chagrin of industry players, Villar and company, along with the Department of Agriculture (DA), chased their own tails, “toiling” on a law that should have been trashed in the first place for favoring the compradors, the non-producing importers and corporate buyers who do not share the risks confronted by farmers. Worse, farmers themselves have asked where the RCEF has gone since it was nowhere to be found when El Nino parched rice fields, baked vegetable patches and caused small water impounding basins to lose their precious liquid. To rub salt to the wound of farmers and fishermen, the DA said help would come once El Nino exits!
Rather than help farmers already reeling under the weight of RTL, Malacanang flogged them some more by issuing Administrative Order No. 20, signed by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin on April 18, which swept away administrative constraints and non-tariff barriers causing “continued increase of domestic prices of agricultural commodities despite existing measures.” The Palace wanted to eviscerate quotas, import licensing systems, regulations, and red tape. Thus, favored importers would not be bothered by the sanitary and phytosanitary inspections, quarantine requirements and other requirements that act in restraint of trade.
Agriculture Secretary Francis “Franco” Tiu Laurel howled when Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan conducted a press briefing to announce the imposition of AO 20, saying he was not consulted at all about the administrative order that hastened importations and said the order may have to snooze for a while as the DA will be responsible for the implementing rules and regulations covering the order. This is a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
The public furor between DA and the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) brings to the spotlight the relevance of NEDA in crafting any plan eschewed by globalists and neoliberal economists who champion the free market that can do no wrong. Central planning was anathema to Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman but why are their true believers still populating NEDA, which, under the ideological and economistic mindset of the leaders of Mt. Pelerin Society (MPS) should have been buried 10 feet underground when the Philippines acceded to the GATT-WTO.
However, it betrays a curious problem within the government. It appears that administrative orders, executive orders and other policy issuances are decided within the inner sanctum of the Palace, bereft of any vetting by Cabinet clusters that should aid the executive in crafting viable, justifiable and correct policies based on reality and not currying favor with the rentiers who belong to the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) or those pushing vested interests. The unlamented Duterte regime made it possible for the Mindanao and Chinese mafia to profit immensely from the Covid-19 pandemic. Will the Marcos Jr. regime allow itself to pander to the interests of the plutocrats that surround him?
