HOUSE Ways and Means Chair Joey Sarte Salceda (Albay, 2nd district) released the following statement on the next steps to be taken by the House Murang Pagkain Supercommittee, also known as QuintaComm:
We will intensify our fight to lower rice prices. As of the latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization, global rice prices are at around USD 427 to 500 per metric ton, which means landed price should be at around P34-36 per kilo.
One of the main drivers of the uptrend, we suspect, is overpricing by supermarkets, which sell on a per kilo basis at as much as P70 per kilo. This is unacceptable. The highest quality Thai indica rice is just at P41 per kilo once landed and imposed all applicable duties and taxes.
The representative of the supermarkets in the QuintaComm hearings made an incorrect assertion that consumer preferences are driving prices up. The Bureau of Plant Industry made a similar assertion on record. Clearly, based on import prices, even the best quality rice should not be at these levels. I remind our resource persons that while I hesitated to cite invitees in contempt during the Christmas season, we are past that now.
The DA’s proposed rice price cap of P58 per kilo would also still give sellers a handsome profit of P17 to 23 per kilo, so we will look into the right price as well.
As for meat, we will ask the DA to brief us on efforts to keep meat prices low. Corn is a top concern, outpacing general inflation by 2.1 percentage points last December. This pulls meat prices up.
We will also aim for long-term efforts to keep vegetable prices affordable and stable – so that surpluses are not harmful to farmers, while deficits are addressed.
The Speaker has reiterated his instructions to the QuintaComm to do all that it can to reduce food prices for Filipino families. My goal is to ensure that overall food prices do not exceed the 2-4 percent inflation goal of the government, at any time this year.
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