Duterte certifies rice tariffication bill as urgent

President Rodrigo Duterte certified on Wednesday the rice tariffication bill as urgent in order to facilitate the passage of the proposed measure to help temper inflation.

Duterte addressed the certification to Senate President Vicente Sotto III and House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. 

Duterte cited the “urgent need to improve availability of rice in the country, prevent artificial rice shortage, reduce the prices of rice in the market, and curtail the prevalence of corruption and cartel domination in the rice industry.”

Bills certified as urgent by the President can sail smoothly through the legislative process when certain rules are dispensed with such as approving on third and final reading a proposed measure only after the second reading.

The House passed its version of the bill in August while a counterpart bill is pending before the Senate.

Socieconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said in July that once the rice tariffication bill is signed into law and fully implemented, prices of rice will likely go down.

According to preliminary estimates of the National Economic and Development Authority, headline inflation would slow down by one percentage point if domestic wholesale prices of goes down to the level of imported rice.

Inflation hit a fresh nine-year high of 6.7 percent in September. —Virgil Lopez/VDS, GMA News