DA: P29-per-kilo rice for all requires over P50 billion a year

The Philippines needs to spend more than P50 billion a year to bring the price of rice to P29 per kilo on "everybody's plate," the Department of Agriculture said on Tuesday.

Agriculture Undersecretary Asis Perez made the remark before a joint congressional inquiry on soaring food prices, smuggling, price manipulation, and hunger.

Perez was asked why P29-per-kilo rice under the Kadiwa program was only sold to the poorest of the poor and senior citizens.

“Putting P29 peso for everybody's plate would require tremendous resources on the part of the government and the fiscal space is limited for us," Perez said.

"So we have to prioritize who will be the recipient of the cheap rice, and we focused on the vulnerable sector,” he added.

“If the fiscal space is not limited...that would be ideal. But considering that that will require probably P50 billion or even more than that annually, medyo mahirap po siyang gawin sa ngayon,” Perez said.

(It would really be very hard for us to pull that off.)

Perez, however, said the government was reaching out to as many as possible in the vulnerable sectors to provide rice at P29 per kilo.

Supervising Science Research Specialist Mildred Guirindola of the state-run Food and Nutrition Research Institute said that 80% of Filipinos could not afford healthy food.

“We are, in general, deficient in most of our foods. Filipinos have adequacy [in access] for protein, but it is because basically, our staple food [which is] rice is also high in protein. We're getting our protein from our staple food. But when we talk about healthy food, about 80% of Filipinos cannot afford healthy foods. That's based on the FAO data,” Guirindola said.

FAO is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

“That’s because fruits, vegetables, fish, and meat are very expensive and poor Filipinos cannot afford [them],” she added.

House Committee on Ways and Means chairperson Albay Representative Joey Salceda then said that Congress should take action on FNRI’s revelation as soon as possible.

“We should have this data photocopied and sent to us because there could be more to this,” Salceda said.

“Laws are in place to guarantee that every Filipino family has food on their tables, yet this is still a dream for many. We want to uncover the gaps that we need to plug to achieve this goal, and if needed, the personalities that should be made accountable for making this goal difficult to achieve,” he added.

The super panel was formed after the adoption of the House Resolution 254 introduced by Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez.

The super committee is composed of the House Committees on Ways and Means, Trade and Industry, Agriculture and Food, Social Services, and the Special Committee on Food Security. —NB, GMA Integrated News