OFW group: Tariffication law is ‘death sentence’ to rice sector

Militant pro-OFW group Migrante International on Saturday slammed the newly-approved rice tariffication law, calling it as President Rodrigo Duterte’s “death sentence” to the local rice industry.

In a statement, Migrante claims the bill will worsen the record $41.44 billion trade deficit resulting from Duterte’s “insane” adherence to unfair trade practices and other “neo-liberal” economic policies.

Moreover, the law will escalate importation as local production of rice further declines.

“From opening the country to the deluge of imported weevil-infested rice to bringing in more importations, this bill is the final nail in the coffin that will spell a tragic ending to the livelihood of millions of rice farmers,” it said.

With the tariffication law in place, more farmers will find rice cultivation a pointless toil, and they will be forced to sell their lands to developers.

Migrante insisted that the measure will force farmers and their children to leave the country and seek a better life overseas, with forced migration fueling the regime’s labor export program.

“Many of our dear OFWs have peasant backgrounds and they fully understand the repercussions that this bill would have to their families’ livelihood back home,” it said.

Migrante pushes a genuine land reform program through free land distribution with subsidies to tillers.

President Duterte signed last Friday the rice tariffication bill that seeks to remove quantitative restrictions on rice and impose a 35-percent tariff on imports from the country’s Asian neighbors.

The measure allows unlimited importation of rice as long as private sector traders secure a phyto-sanitary permit from the Bureau of Plant Industry and pay the 35-percent tariff for shipment.

(GMA News Online)