Malacañang warned that it would file economic sabotage raps against unscrupulous rice traders who would use the government’s P20-per-kilogram rice program to justify rock-bottom offer-prices for palay at the farmgate.
Palace Press Officer Claire Castro, in a briefing in Malacañang on Thursday, urged farmers to report to the government traders who would unjustly pull down farmgate prices, to enable the Marcos administration to take appropriate action against opportunistic middlemen.
Castro said farmers can go to the Departments of Agriculture (DA), Interior and Local Governments (DILG) or Justice (DOJ) in seeking legal action.
“To our farmers, do not be afraid, just complete the evidence if possible, to enable us to go after the traders and charge them. This could be a case of economic sabotage, so do not hesitate to report them to us,” she said in Filipino.
Castro relayed the warning amid reports that some traders have been using the “Benteng Bigas, Meron Na!” (BBM Na) program to force farmers to lower the prices of palay that they sell.
Early this week, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., during an interaction with farmers in Nueva Ecija, assured the public that the National Food Authority (NFA) would not lower but maintain the buying prices of palay at rates profitable to local farmers.
Marcos said the NFA has been buying dry palay at P19 to P23 per kilo, and wet palay at P18 per kilo.
Marcos promised during the presidential campaign in 2022 to lower the prices of rice to P20 per kilo to enable the public, especially the poor, to buy the staple.
The government, through the Department of Agriculture’s NFA and Food Terminal Inc. (FTI), started selling the NFA rice at P20 per kilo in the Visayas last May by subsidizing the cost of rice jointly with local government units.
President Marcos on Tuesday launched the sale of the P20-per-kilo rice in Bacoor, Cavite, to vulnerable sectors.
The vulnerable sectors covered by the P20-per-kilo rice program include the solo parents, senior citizens, persons with disabilities, indigent families identified in the government’s conditional cash transfer program or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), and the minimum wage earners, one million of whom would be included in the NFA program by the end of 2025.
