Explanation of Vote, Bicameral Conference Report : “An Act Liberalizing the Importation, Exportation and Trading of Rice, Lifting for the Purpose the Quantitative Import Restriction on Rice, and for Other Purposes”

Mr. President, my dear colleagues:

The bill has its merits but it also has its Achilles Heel—many, in fact.

I will no longer extol its many virtues as they have been eloquently explained by Senator Cynthia.

I would rather dwell on what must be done so that the promise of this legislation will not be lost in execution.

It is a fear that is not unfounded. Ours is a government littered with the carcasses of laws full of good intentions, only to die at the hands of bad implementors.

This bill must not meet such a fate. So much is at stake, so high the expectation, so great the promises, so many depend on it that failure is not an option.

First, this law should be the subject of stringent congressional oversight. This is the only way to prevent deviation from its intention.

Congress often succumbs to the “pass and forget” syndrome in legislation. But not on this, please. If we want the law to be faithful to its intentions, we must watch over the backs of those who will carry it out.

We should not let the usual suspects bungle its implementation.

Second, all the proceeds from importation must be distributed to farmers. To the last centavo.

A 100-percent plowback rate will guarantee that government will not be tempted to use the taxes collected to shore up its fiscal position.

This is about putting cheap rice on the table, and not stashing money in state coffers. Read our lips: This is not a revenue measure.

As authors of this measure, we must see to it that the promised minimum P10 billion in Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund is appropriated annually. And equally important is that the fund adheres to the menu we have stipulated in this bill.

At kung sumobra sa sampung bilyong piso ang duties na na-kolekta mula sa inangkat na bigas, isama ito, on top of the P10 billion.

In allocating revenue dividends, we must follow this rule: those who have been adversely affected and those who badly needed assistance, should be prioritized. Those who lost more should get more.

We should also not rule out direct compensation to farmers. Pag direkta sa bulsa, walang leak, walang wastage, walang korapsyon.

And when funds are made available, then, like justice, they must flow like a mighty river, and not trickle from a dry irrigation pump.

After all, this is not just a matter of improving productivity—it is also about fairness, of indemnifying those who had suffered losses.

Farm income losses are nothing to be sneezed at. It is estimated to reach as high as P88 billion annually. If farmers wore suits and owned banks, there would have been a scramble to package a bailout. They will be throwing protest confetti down Ayala Avenue.

Third, anti-smuggling operations must be intensified. While conventional wisdom states that dismantling trade barriers deters smuggling, it is not always the case.

Where profit can be realized by circumventing rules, the incentive to commit it will remain powerful.

In fact, the sheer volume of imports may even camouflage contraband. Smugglers may even use legal channels, and let their goods piggyback on legal shipment.

Bottlenecks in the domestic movement of rice must end. The biggest jump in rice prices happens outside the farmgate. Traffic, and road kotong, for example, make rice more costly to consumers.

Fair trade practices must be instituted. For example, bulk storage as buffer for lean months makes sense. But when what is hoarded is hedged for extremely high prices, it becomes an anti-competition sin.

Fourth, rice tariffication is not the end-all and be-all in attaining food security.

Much remains to be done to make affordable food available to all, at all times. It is also wrong to benchmark food security to one crop alone: rice, even if it is the national staple.

If you look at our food consumption record, there are across-the-board deficits, from meat to vegetables to starches.

True, we may never be self-reliant in all of this. But when optimum utilization is still possible, then we must maximize yield, through well-timed and well-placed investments which create jobs and wealth.

Example, we have not fully tapped the generous rainfall nature has gifted us with. Half of irrigable lands remain unirrigated. It is also not true that only rice—a crop with a serious drinking problem—would require water.

To believe otherwise is to ignore what a kid learns early on in nursery school: That we can’t grow crops without water. That we can’t raise animals without it. So let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that water impoundment exclusively benefits rice farmers. Water nourishes all.

Now is the time to invest in climate-smart, science-proven farming technologies.

Fifth, this will certainly trigger a mass migration of rice farmers from growing crops which, to begin with, demands hard labor and expensive inputs yet yields little profit.

Rice farming is a sub-minimum wage enterprise.

Despite this, about two million farmers on 4.8 million hectares, plod on in one of the world’s toughest occupations.

If palay prices dive below breakeven levels, farmers, whose average age is 57, will call it quits, permanently.

If they will not be able shift to other crops, their exodus from farming is a foregone conclusion. When that happens, we can only hope that we will not lose our national muscle memory in rice farming.

We have to retain it because rice is a thinly-traded global commodity. Only a small surplus is up for sale outside the borders of gross producers. Even China, which produces about 130 million metric tons of rice per annum, still imports around six million metric tons of rice annually.

If one exporting country gets hit by a bad crop, or a virulent pest, or a drought, or civil strife, it would affect the rice supply of importing countries, the Philippines included.

If, for example, a rice-growing powerhouse catches a flu in the future, then what is our guarantee that we won’t get pneumonia?

And climate change, being the new normal, cannot be discounted.

If we have outsourced our rice supply to production areas beyond our control, and then when crunch time comes, we have nothing to fall back on, if our farmers have turned their back on rice.

My point, Mr. President, is that we should not solely view this program as an anti-inflation measure for the benefit of our rice-consuming poor but as a means and opportunity to modernize our farm sector.

Because it affects millions, this is actually a social reengineering project that must be handled carefully, and which requires safety nets to be in place.

I am glad that we have installed a “stop” button the president can press when the rate of imports, the rate of duties, already injure the national interest.

Among the conferred powers to the chief executive is the power to increase, reduce, revise, or adjust existing import duty rates up to the bound rates committed under the WTO Agreement and ATIGA.

Mr. President:

I believe we owe our farmers candor, and we should also likewise forewarn the executive that they will be betraying our toiling and tilling class if they will bungle the implementation of this law.

Having aired my warnings, I vote yes, Mr. President.