Senators say revenues from tariffs on imported rice be given to farmers

By Vanne Elaine Terrazola

Revenues that would be raised from the tariffs on imported rice would be allocated primarily to local farmers under the Senate’s version of the proposed rice tariffication law.

Senators have agreed that majority of the duties collected from the importation of rice be given to the farmers for the improvement of their production, and not to raise government revenue.

Senator Ralph Recto (JOHN JEROME GANZON / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto pushed for the matter during the plenary deliberation Tuesday on the Senate Bill No. 1998, which seeks to replace the quantitative restriction (QR) on rice imports with tariffs and lift the quantitative exports restrictions on rice.

Recto bared that “some quarters in the government” have proposed to use the rice tariffication to “shore up the government’s fiscal position.”

The Senate leader particularly said that “an agency in the government’s economic cluster” moves to limit the farmers’ assistance to only P10 billion a year.

Under SB 1998, there shall be an annual Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) of P10 billion for the development of the farmers’ production and farm mechanization, as well as loans. The RCEF would be sourced from the duties levied on imported rice.

But Recto rejected the supposed capping of the RCEF when excess collections could be booked as national income.

“Unfair naman ‘yan (It would be unfair). Kung halimbawa P25 billion ang collection, ibig sabihin mas malaki pa ang share ng pamahalaan kaysa sa mga magsasakang maapektuhan (If the collection, for example, was P25 billion, does it mean that the government has greater share than the farmers the would be affected)? Farmers get the pain and government gets the gain?” Recto said.

“Rice tariffication is not a revenue measure,” he added.

Recto cited projections from government think-tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies that government revenues from rice tariffs would range from P13.9 billion to P27.7 billion next year.

In Tuesday’s period of amendments on SB 1998, Sen. Cynthia Villar, sponsor of the measure, said the RCEF was initially pegged at P10 billion to “avoid complicating” the government’s implementation of the proposed law. Villar said the “more simple” the amount, the more chances that the government will grant the fund.

Following the brief debate on the matter, Villar, Recto, and other senators agreed on setting the RCEF at a minimum P10 billion a year for six years, and tariff revenues in excess of P10 billion shall be appropriated by Congress based on a menu of programs in the rice tariffication law.

“The result is a 100-percent plowback rate. Everything will be returned to the farmers. Duties will be spent to cover their losses, improve their productivity and not to plug the budget deficit,” Recto said.