The Department of Agriculture (DA) will continue implementing suggested retail prices (SRPs) on rice despite the continuous decline of the staple’s prices in the market, the agriculture chief said.
Originally meant to tame prices in the short run, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol backtracked in an interview and said they had no plans to stop the measure given its effectiveness.
Under the reform, local regular-milled and well-milled rice should be sold at no more than P39 and P44 a kilogram, respectively, while imported variants will be limited to well-milled and premium rice and will be priced not higher than P39 and P43 a kilo, respectively.
However, Monetary Board member Bruce Tolentino—who also worked as a deputy director of the International Rice Research Institute—said in an interview that the SRPs should already be scrapped, noting that price points for the staple were meant to be a short-term solution.
“I’m sure the sellers have many ways to evade it,” he said of the SRP. “Imagine how much cost you’re spending just to police or monitor [these traders].”
“Now that prices have gone way down and the harvest is in, and once tariffication happens, everybody will compete so they will lower their prices. There is no need for the SRP,” he added.
Rice prices in the market reached record-highs in September due to costlier fuel and tight supply of the staple, which led the DA and the Department of Trade and Industry to limit rice varieties into four with corresponding price points.
That policy was implemented in Metro Manila starting the last week of October and in provinces, a week after.
According to Piñol, the implementation of SRPs largely contributed to the decline in rice prices, but for economic managers, it was a natural result of the influx of imported rice in the market and the onset of the harvest season.
The Philippine Statistics Authority has yet to release its weekly price monitoring reports since the SRPs were implemented. As of the first week of November—its latest update—retail prices of regular-milled and well-milled rice decreased by 0.88 percent and 0.56 percent, respectively, to P44.12 and P47.60 a kilo from its prices a week ago.
Rice prices began to decline by the first week of October, although at a modest pace. The downtrend has been continuing for the last five weeks, as per PSA.