The President’s economic managers decided to remove provisions calling for the restructuring of the National Food Authority (NFA) in proposals to amend Republic Act (RA) 8178 to convert the quantitative restriction (QR) of rice into tariffs.
National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Assistant Secretary Mercedita A. Sombilla told the BusinessMirror that the Economic Development Cluster (EDC) of the Cabinet said the Tariffication Act, or RA 8178, would be easier to pass sans the NFA provision.
The NFA provision would restructure the agency so it could focus on buffer stocking. The primary mandate of NFA is to “ensure national food security and stabilize the supply and prices of safe staple cereals both in the farm and
consumer levels”.
“The tariffication [of rice], more or less, is accepted by the public and legislators. As for the NFA, there are still some congressmen, some senators who do not see the wisdom of restructuring the agency,” Sombilla said.
“If the NFA’s restructuring will be included in the tariffication
bill, its passage could be delayed,” she added.
The removal of the NFA provision would be recommended to lawmakers who are currently working on a consolidated bill for converting the rice-import caps into tariffs. The consolidated bill would be subjected to scrutiny by various House panels.
The House of Representatives has already conducted a technical working group (TWG) committee hearing on the bill but a similar hearing has not been held at the Senate of the Philippines.
The Philippines wants to fast-track the amendment of RA 8178 so it could convert the rice QR and comply with its commitment to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
“We really need to put that [tariff] in place. There’s a WTO meeting in October, so by that time we should already have a clear direction on the tariff,” Sombilla said. “I have also asked the EDC to help us push the bill at the Senate.”
The Philippines is being pressured by fellow WTO member-countries to honor its commitment to implement a rice-tariffication scheme. The waiver to extend the special treatment on rice granted by the WTO expired on June 30.
The QR has allowed the government to limit the volume of rice that enters the Philippines every year, preventing a possible influx of cheap rice imports.
The government could not immediately convert the QR into tariff because RA 8178 did not specify a termination date for it. This means that even if the Philippines’s waiver expired on June 30, the government is bound to implement the QR on rice, as mandated by RA 8178.
The Duterte administration vowed to allocate all the proceeds from tariffs collected from rice imports to cut farmers’ production cost, according to the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2017-2022.