Pangasinan folk complaining of increasing rice cost

ROSALES, Pangasinan—Prices of rice in Pangasinan province have gone up in the last two weeks, generating complaints from consumers.

Roger Tan, a rice miller here, said the higher rice prices were due to the increase in the buying price of palay, from P22.50 per kilogram two weeks ago to the present P23.50 per kg.

“What we are buying now are those harvested in October last year,” Tan said. A 50-kg bag of regular milled rice is sold for P1,830 to P1,840, or P36.60 to P36.80 per kg.

“Actually, it should be P1,900 per bag. But we cannot increase by much the price in the province, even if we are losing a little, because people have been complaining,” said Tan.

“What we did was to recover our losses by selling the milling byproducts, such as rice bran and rice hull,” he said.

A check with the price situation report of the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) indicated that as of Feb. 5, prices of rice increased by P1 per kg in the cities of Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro.

But the BAS said prices of regular milled rice increased by P3 per kg in Baguio City and by P2 per kg in Cabanatuan City. However, rice prices were lower by P1 per kg in the cities of Cebu and Naga.

Tan said some farmers, who harvested in October and November last year, opted to keep their palay and sell them only now when the price is good. Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon