Beware of rice shortage when gov't sets price cap

Rice control on rice is dangerous. Once the Department of Agriculture sets a maximum suggested retail price starting Monday, Jan. 20, the staple will vanish from market stalls. Retailers will stop selling rather than lose money.

- JARIUS BONDOC

Secretary Francis Tiu Laurel's problem will worsen into rice shortage.

Shortage will incite rampage. Recall the looting in Rizal after Superstorm Ondoy in 2009, and in Leyte after Super Typhoon Yolanda in 2014. Starving folk know no law.

Tiu Laurel finds unacceptable present rates of P62-P64 a kilo: "There should be no P60 per kilo of imported rice. It's profiteering."

Under the new Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act, price gouging, smuggling, hoarding are non-bailable life-term offenses. Fine is five times the value of products involved.

Tiu Laurel's maximum suggested retail price will be P58 per kilo of imported stock.

He seems to anticipate doomsday, and so confusedly says, "It's not a suggestion, it's not a price cap either."

That there's a rice price cartel is certain. Agri-sector Rep. Nicanor Briones says that less than 10 importers-wholesalers control three-fourths of supply.

The House Murang Pagkain Supercommittee recently invited seven importers, wholesalers, warehousers, millers and dealers. "Three of the seven are all of the above and thus dictate rates," Briones laments.

Federation of Free Farmers chairman Leonardo Montemayor cautions Tiu Laurel against going after market vendors. "There are too many of them, they cannot cartelize retail rates," adds his brother, FFF national manager Raul Montemayor.