Mindnanaotoday.com | Palace claims stable price, supply of rice
By: Uriel Quilinguing
On the premises that the domestic price and supply of rice have stabilized, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. issued Executive Order No. 42 on October 4, this year, lifting the price ceilings on locally produced rice he set a month ago, a copy of which was posted on the Official Gazette on Wednesday, October 11.
Prices of locally produced rice at Cogon Public Market in Cagayan de Oro City on Wednesday, October 11, ranged from as low as P50 to as high as P61 per kilogram, the Department of Agriculture Northern Mindanao reported.
Under Section 2 of E.O. No. 42, the President directed his concurrent agency, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Trade and Industry, and other agencies “to fortify existing programs and initiatives to provide support and assistance to farmers, retailers, and consumers.”
These agencies include the National Food Authority, an attached agency of the DA, which is primarily tasked to ensure food security through palay procurement and buffer stocking.
Aside from “decreasing rice prices in the domestic market” and “increasing supply of rice stock,” of the whereases of the document even cited “declining global rice prices,” thus the need to repeal E.O. No. 39 which the Office of the President issued on September 5, 2023.
The price ceilings per kilogram (kg), as set by E.O. No. 39 were P41 for regular milled rice (RMR) and P45 for well-milled rice (WMR), both locally produced rice. Retailers in Cagayan de Oro and elsewhere in Northern Mindanao opted to sell local Premium and Special rice to avoid losses.
On Wednesday, October 11, the prices of locally produced rice at Cogon Public Market in Cagayan de Oro were: RMR P52, WMR P54, Premium P54.50, and Special P61.
These prices were unchanged since for three days, except for Special which was P62 per kg on October 9, according to the Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Division of the Department of Agriculture Northern Mindanao.
The President’s issuances were anchored on Republic Act No. 7581, more known as the Price Act, as amended by R.A. No. 10623, which sets four conditions by which price ceilings on any basic necessity or prime commodity are to be imposed:
1. Threat, existence, or effect of an emergency;
2. Prevalence or widespread acts of illegal price manipulations;
3. Impendency, existence or effect of any event that causes artificial and unreasonable increase in the price of the basic necessity or prime commodity; and
4. Whenever the prevailing price of any basic necessity or prime commodity has risen to unreasonable levels.
These were among the basis the agriculture and trade and industry agencies used in recommending to the President the imposition of the price ceilings on local regular and well-milled rice as well as its eventual lifting.
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