Tax collections from rice imports down 23% in Feb

Collections of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) from duties on rice imports have dropped by 23.1% as of mid-February, the Department of Finance (DOF) reported Monday.

Data released by the DOF showed that BOC collections from rice imports of private traders fell to P1.71 billion from

January 1 to February 14 this year from the P2.22 billion in 2018.

President Rodrigo Duterte in February 2019 signed the Rice Tariffication Law, which liberalized the entry of imported rice into the Philippines.

Effective March 2019, the Philippines allowed the unlimited importation of rice as long as traders secure a phytosanitary permit from the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) and pay the 35% tariff for shipments from neighbors in Southeast Asia.

According to the DOF, the BOC recorded a total of 2019,320 metric tons (MT) of rice from January 1 to February 14 this year.

This is 61.8% lower than the 759,810 MT brought into the country during the same period in 2019, when the RTL was not yet in effect.

“BOC collections from rice imports of private traders since the enactment of RA 11203 in March 2019 will benefit palay growers as such revenues are earmarked for the annual P10-billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF),” the DOF said.

The RCEF was mandated to help rice farmers in the face of unrestricted flow of imported rice into the country. The P10-billion fund includes P5 billion for farm mechanization, and P3 billion to procure seedlings.

Non-government organization Integrated Rural Development Foundation (IRDF) earlier said that the fund was not enough to cater to the local farmers.

IRDF executive director Arze Glipo said that should the fund be divided equally among local farmers, they will only receive financial assistance of P4,000 each, far from their losses reaching as high as P30,000.