Gov't insists: No rice supply shortage, just price elevation

LAGUNA, Philippines - The government on Monday reiterated that the country is not experiencing a shortage in rice supply, but an abnormal hike in prices of the staple. During a round-table discussion at the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, Dr. Frisco Malabanan, executive director of the Department of Agriculture's Ginintuang Masaganang Ani Rice Program, said the country has a 90 percent rice sufficiency level. In fact, governors of rice-producing provinces have reported more than enough harvest this season, he said. "We don't have any rice crisis today. Yung price ang problema natin... We don't have to panic. We have enough rice," Malabanan said. The political opposition had criticized the government for differentiating between supply shortage and price elevation, saying both situations have the same effect on poor Filipinos who will "end up hungry" due to this crisis. "The government's claim that there is no rice crisis but only a price crisis is plain insensitivity to the plight of the masa. The net effect to the poor is the same since they don't have enough money to buy rice, then even if there is technically no shortage, the poor will still end up hungry," United Opposition spokesman Adel Tamano earlier said. Despite this criticism, the Dean of the UPLB College of Public Affairs shares the same view. "There is no physical shortage of rice, but a 'rice price crisis,'" Dean Agnes C. Rola said. "There is rice sufficiency in physical terms but there is no household food security among the low income groups because they do not have access to the highly priced rice." Rola explained that the "abnormal" increase in the price of the grain is due to soaring world market prices of commodities, which have made inputs to the production of palay more expensive. "In the past, domestic wholesale price has followed the world price trends. At the moment, world price, according to news reports, is at $1,200 per metric ton, compared with $400 per metric ton last year... rice price will necessarily increase," Rola said. But the school official said that although world market prices are soaring, Philippine retail and wholesale prices are still comparably higher, a claim Malabanan vehemently denied. "That's not true. Call up people in Thailand and ask them how much rice costs in their markets," he challenged. - Patricia de Leon, GMANews.TV