Politi- crazy

ASSUMING without accepting the DA, DTI and the President mismo believe that “cartels” are manipulating rice prices and taking advantage of the external price upsurge, which is the official reason given for imposing price caps on retail prices of the staple at P41 to P45, far below what the market equilibrium is at present, I wonder why they did not:

First— call the members of the “cartel,” or the big rice traders and importers, as well as the rice millers to Malacanang, during which the president cum DA secretary appeals and threatens, in that order, and strikes the fear of the law (read that as the BIR), so that an agreement close to the equilibrium market price is agreed upon, instead of punishing the rice retailers and in the forthcoming harvest, the farmers who even now are getting lower prices for their early harvest;

Second— cross-tabulate the Bureau of Plant Industry records on import permits with the Bureau of Customs’ records on import arrivals, for which they exact a 35 percent tariff, to be able to determine the actual volume of imported rice stockpiled in the bodegas of the rice trade chain.

I found it funny that after “raids” by the BoC and the HoR leadership, the former gave the traders until 15 September to produce evidence that those stocks were legally imported, or smuggled;

And third— I find it strange that per news reports, the BPI issued 2,082 sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances for close to 2 million metric tons of rice only in the past two months (July and August).

Why not earlier, when NFA told the president and other DA officials as early as end-April that they had precarious stocks good only for two days, and when DA already knew that the summer crop (March-May) fetched prices as high as P23 to P28 per kilo of palay from private traders such that NFA with its buying price at P19 simply could not compete?

Meanwhile, less funds go to the basics: health, education, infrastructure. What a country!

And these importers will ship in their imports at the height of the typhoon season?

And now, with world market prices having gone almost $200 per metric ton higher than May prices?

One wonders, who could have advised the president to impose the price ceilings on rice?

DTI, DA, his economic managers? That does not seem likely.

If they thought imposing price ceilings would be effective, why didn’t they tell the president to do so with onions when the bulbs went up to P600-P700 per kilo?

Is it because there are only a few players in sugar and onions?

Easy to talk with for you know what?

Up to now, no one has been reported charged with economic sabotage or price manipulation, especially in onions, except one dummy who the House detained the other day.

Rice is a different animal.

There are many industry players, big and small, some specializing only in their respective provinces and regions.

What media and legislators call cartels are dispersed, unlike sugar which at one time was controlled by the “Big Seven.”

Our friend, Philstar’s Jarius Bondoc had an interesting theory in his column yesterday about the possibility of a government-blessed rice importer.

When I was appointed to head the NFA in the first days of PNoy’s government, I was aghast that government-to-government deals could only be made with Vietnam through a supply agreement made possible only with presidential approval.

Immediately I had a supply agreement drafted with Thailand, which PNoy readily approved.

Then I drafted another with Cambodia, and it was in the agenda for an ASEAN summit, but our president tabled the agreement because Hun Sen, the presiding chair, refused to place the WPS issue for discussion.

It was subsequently approved after two years. But that’s all water under the bridge, because as I keep stating, the NFA has been castrated by the hastily-passed rice tarrification law of 2019, no longer allowed to import, no longer allowed to regulate traders and retailers, no longer allowed to sell except to DSWD and LGUs and, of course, the resurrected Kadiwa where government lost P12 to P13 per kilo sold, and is now an invisible commodity in the few operating stores.

Look at DA’s Bureau of Plant Industry, or the Philippine International Trading Corporation, and of course, the Bureau of Customs.

Now let’s input the coming harvest.

With the massive rains and floods, and the clouds covering the sun, our palay farmers know that the yield per hectare will be lower, and the grains of inferior quality.

Photosynthesis, our science teachers in high school taught us. The DA people know that very well.

Rice is a fungible commodity, meaning, inferior quality can be mixed with better quality to earn more, as very few consumers know by looks or smell, what is truly dinorado or sinandomeng or whatever, even whether it is locally produced or imported.

And with the price ceilings, the market is instantly discombobulated, as we wrote last Monday, and a cacophony of negative reactions by both media and the business community, as well as farmers, save for a few who think repealing the law of supply and demand can be done.

On the first day of its implementation, many retailers either defied the ceilings or sold some at P45 with long faces and limited stock.

Others just closed shop, which officials, even with the optics of some Metro Manila mayors and the DILG/DA/DTI officials in the usual markets where TV crews monitor prices, could not prevent.

Some could have mixed even the sweepings with their 25 percent brokens just to have a few kilos labelled regular milled at P41 per kilo.

Meanwhile, PSA reportedfood inflation rose to 8.1 percent last month, up from 6.3 percent in July.

In August 2022, food inflation was lower at 6.5 percent. Along with weekly oil price increases, inflation rose to 5.3 percent, up from 4.7 percent in July when our economic managers were telling us the worst is over.

Well, yesterday, the Brent crude oil benchmark upped to $90 per barrel, mainly due to the cartel of OPEC+Russia.

It has been rising by anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar each day the past week and now. More bad news on the external dis-economies.

The president before he left for Jakarta to attend the 43rd summit of an ASEAN that is increasingly irrelevant and dis-united, assured retailers of “ayuda.” Lahat na lang, ang solusyon— ayuda.

4Ps which made the poor more dependent and lazy; delayed ayuda for transport sector; selective ayuda for farmers; promised ayuda for rice retailers, all subsidized by taxpayers.

And the biggest ayuda of them all: pork barrel for legislators so they earn from their favored contractors, or as many have done, be the contractors themselves.

Meanwhile, less funds go to the basics: health, education, infrastructure.

What a country!

***

The Comelec has announced almost 1.2 million candidates filed their CoCs for the upcoming barangay and SK elections come October 30.

They will be vying for 42,000 barangay chair seats; 294,000 kagawad positions plus that trapotraining ground called the SK.

Many of the candidates, as expected, are wives, sons, daughters, brothers and other kin of the barangay chairmen and their kagawads, or the mayors and councilors themselves, further perpetuating local dynasties in this country.

As in the past, expect vote-buying. That is the lay of the land. What their mayors and congressmen do, the barangay and SK officials will likewise, with less comparative cost.

My friend Comelec chair George Garcia calls the forthcoming elections a sign of our democracy. Truth to tell, it shows how feudal and dynastic our political order is.

This is not to say that all chairmen and their kagawads are not imbued with a desire to serve their community well. But that seems to have been more exception than rule; self-service more than public service.

Or maybe it is a sign of the economic times: unemployment and under-employment get everyone who cannot be OFWs abroad, or get jobs which pay even less than living wages here at home, instead vie for positions with some power and some compensation, with a few rackets on the side. Mabuti na kesa nga-nga at istambay.

As we have kept observing here, politics is business in this country.

Big business for national legislators, governors and city mayors; medium to small businesses for barangays.

Oh, what a politi-crazy country!