BY MANIPULATING supply and demand, unscrupulous rice traders are able to increase rice prices while providing the National Food Authority with justifications to import rice from Vietnam and other countries. This is an old trick repeatedly used by unscrupulous rice cartels. They suppress the supply of rice and create an artificial rice shortage thereby leaving our consumers with no choice but to buy expensive commercial rice.
Deceitful rice traders are hoarding rice to the detriment of our poor countrymen who must struggle to eat three square meals a day. They should be held liable for violating Republic Act 10845 or the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016.
Also, the Department of Agriculture should charge with economic sabotage the owners of warehouses stockpiling and repacking NFA rice and passing them off as expensive commercial rice.
We shouldn’t buy the excuse of traders that this is merely inventory management. This is clearly a case of economic sabotage. Hoarding rice to create a scenario wherein rice is scarce results in skyrocketing rice prices. This is the very definition of price manipulation and economic sabotage.
Relative to rice importation, there must be full disclosure and transparency – keys to dismantling rice cartels.
Replacement of import quotas with tariffs would not dismantle the rice cartels. The government rosters of rice importers and traders must be purged of smugglers, economic saboteurs, hoarders, and tax evaders.
It is still business as usual for rice cartels because they control the underlying system and internal architecture of rice importation and distribution. Their control of that system is not addressed by any of the bills on rice tariffication. But revoking their licenses and permits to import rice will deal a serious blow to the rice cartels.
Rice cartel members are able to operate with impunity because their identities are hidden from public view. It is time to bring those names out of the shadows through transparent and verifiable full disclosure.
