Tolentino: Gov’t must cut rice tariff during calamities to aid farmers

Senate Majority Leader Francis “Tol” Tolentino (Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)

TAGBILARAN CITY – Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino on Thursday, Nov. 28, announced there is a need to slash rice tariffs during calamities to help affected farmers.

Tolentino, who was in Bohol to lead the Assistance to Individual in Crisis Situation (AICS) payout, said he will review the rice tariffication law so that the government can aid rice farmers following massive losses incurred by palay producing provinces due to the series of typhoons that battered the country.

READ: Tolentino seeks gov’t subsidy for rice farmers after series of storms

Tolentino said he will take up the matter with Senator Cynthia Villar, chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, who emphasized during the budget deliberations last week that the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) needs to be subsidized in the 2025 budget to compensate for the losses incurred by the fund from the huge tariff slash.

A tariff is a tax imposed by a country on the goods and services imported from another country to raise revenues.

Tolentino considered raising back rice tariffs to generate much-needed subsidies for farmers’ support through the RCEF.

Rice tariffs were earlier slashed from 35 percent to 15 percent beginning June until year 2028, under Executive Order 62, supposedly as an inflation control measure.

Tolentino said that agriculture suffered P786 million in damages from recent typhoons, particularly from Kristine to Pepito. Of this, 53 percent or P414 million, was incurred by the rice sector alone.

“This affected 32,000 hectares of rice farms and 19,000 metric tons in lost production,” he said.

Tolentino said critical losses to the rice sector would affect next year’s supply and prices, and greatly impact food security.