{"id":237675,"date":"2019-11-18T04:58:38","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T09:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=237675"},"modified":"2019-11-18T04:58:38","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T09:58:38","slug":"no-palace-order-to-stop-rice-importation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/11\/18\/no-palace-order-to-stop-rice-importation\/","title":{"rendered":"No Palace order to stop rice importation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The USDA-FAS has projected the country\u2019s rice imports to reach a record 3 million metric tons (MT) by year-end — the highest in the world and the highest for the country while China is expected to import 2.5 million MT. (File Photo<\/a>: National Food Authority\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— President Rodrigo Duterte did not order Agriculture Secretary William Dar to implement any suspension of rice importation, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Monday.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo made this clarification following reports that the President ordered the suspension of rice importation amid farmers’ woes resulting from the Rice Tariffication Law.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs of this time there is no order to stop rice importation given the [sic] Sec Dar of the Department of Agriculture per the latter,\u201d Panelo said in a message to reporters.<\/p>\n

In an exclusive interview with GMA News last Friday, Duterte said government should start purchasing local rice to help the local farmers.<\/p>\n

Duterte signed the Rice Tariffication Law last February to allow unlimited rice importation, but investors must first secure a phytosanitary permit from the Bureau of Plant Industry and pay the 35-percent tariff for shipments from Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

Farmer groups have blamed the law for the falling farm gate prices of palay which fell to as low as PHP7 in Central Luzon.<\/p>\n

Recently, data from the United States Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agriculture Services (USDA-FAS) showed that the Philippines has emerged as the top global importer of rice, beating China.<\/p>\n

The USDA-FAS has projected the country\u2019s rice imports to reach a record 3 million metric tons (MT) by year-end — the highest in the world and the highest for the country while China is expected to import 2.5 million MT.<\/p>\n

Panelo earlier said Malaca\u00f1ang recognizes the Philippines\u2019 long-standing problem of relying on rice imports to meet demand but assured the public that government is working to address it.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that the Philippines is trailing behind its Southeast Asian neighbors, stressing that the country\u2019s irrigation system needs improvement.<\/p>\n

The DA has provided cash assistance to affected farmers tilling one hectare and below in view of the declining palay prices since the Rice Tariffication Law took effect.<\/p>\n

Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the cash assistance was a one-time cash-out and this would be taken from the tariff being collected out of the law.<\/p>\n

It has also began implementing stricter sanitary and phytosanitary measures on the issuance of import clearance to address the huge entry of imported rice and curb poor quality rice imports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— President Rodrigo Duterte did not order Agriculture Secretary William Dar to implement any suspension of rice importation, Malaca\u00f1ang said …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":158974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237676,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237675\/revisions\/237676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}