Byline: EDMER F. PANESA

Former two-time agriculture secretary now Sorsogon Rep. Salvador Escudero III yesterday said President Arroyo's order to increase palay prices from P12 to P17 was laudable but it should be coupled with an increased subsidy for milled rice to keep the prices at its

Escudero, who served as agriculture secretary during the Marcos and Ramos administrations, said it must be explained that with the order, the price of milled rice could reach R34 or double the farmgate price of unhusked rice if the consumer price would not get any subsidy.

"I welcome the President's order because it will encourage farmers to plant more rice," Escudero said. "On the other side of the coin, it should be explained that consumer price of milled rice is twice the price of dry palay."

The opposition lawmaker underscored the need for an increased government subsidy for the price of milled rice to maintain the cost for end-consumers at its present level.

At present, the National Food Authority (NFA) sells rice at P18 per kilo.

Escudero said he is quite sure an increased government subsidy is in the offing but he warned that "any subsidy being contemplated must be long lasting, if not permanent."

He also warned that the P5 increase in the price of palay is rather huge and may no longer be taken back even after the rice crisis that world agencies warned to hit Asia.

The current increase, he said, is an incentive but it becomes a disincentive once the government decides to lower it after the crisis.

"I hope the government doesn't take it back after just six months or one year," said the father of Sen. Francis "Chiz" Escudero.

Meanwhile, House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo said the President's order to increase the price of palay will be useless if the NFA fails to directly go to the farmgate to buy palay this coming harvest and go beyond its onepercent total annual procurement of palay.

Ocampo said the NFA should increase its procurement capacity and go beyond its annual procurement local production, "otherwise the increase in palay prices will only have minimal effect on farmers' income."

"Raising prices of palay alone will only match the buying price of unscrupulous rice traders but will not in any way counter their monopoly in supply and ensure that rice prices will be stabilized," Ocampo said. "In addition to increasing palay prices, the government must ensure that bulk of the harvest will go to NFA warehouses or at the government's hands to protect consumers."

The lawmaker called on the NFA to go directly to the farmgate and buy at least 25 percent of the palay harvest to counter rice cartels.

Concern aired for wage earners over palay price hike

Non-government organizatioons (NGOs) opposed yesterday the 42 percent increase in the price of palay or from R12 to at least R17 per kilo, stressing that while this will benefit the farmers temporarily, the Filipino masses, especially average wage earners and their families, will eventually suffer.

They said with the 12 percent increase in the price of palay, the cost of rice per kilo will correspondingly increase at such percentage points, that the economic ordeal of ordinary workers ad their families will be almost unbearable.

The NGOs, led by Florante G. Reyes of Integrated Labor Organization of the Philippines (ILOP), Adolf Ortega of the Confederation of Filipino Drug Entrepreneurs (Confide), Cris B. Vitug of Kapisanan ng Malayang Mamamayang Pilipino, and former World Health Organization (WHO) consultant Dr. Jose R. Relacion said the farmers themselves will suffer if the farmgate price of palay is increased as the prices of basic commodities will also go up.

Reyes said instead of raising the cost of palay, the government should expedite the implementation, in the most liberal terms, of the R5 billion subsidy to farmers that President Arroyo had announced when she was in Hong Kong last Tuesday.

The R5 billion subsidy will provide suffient incentives to farmers to produce more rice without jacking up its price as a matter of course, thus providing a win-win solution to the threatening rice crisis on long range basis, Relacion pointed out. (E. T. Suarez)