MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines could end up paying close to P60 billion this year for rice imports to avert a shortage, with P21.7 billion ending up as subsidies through the National Food Authority.
Sen. Francis Escudero said the rice import bill of P58.7 billion was roughly equivalent to the total value-added tax (VAT) collections from fuel, which would put the Arroyo administration in a tight spot of choosing between a “balanced budget or balanced diet.”
“(The rice import bill) is bigger than the budget of the AFP (military) or the PNP (police), and five times the allocation for the Department of Health. Taxes collected on the gas pump will just be swapped for rice. The rise in the world prices of rice, which translates into bigger corporate subsidy for the NFA, was never factored in this year’s expenditures,” said Escudero in a statement.
If the price of imported rice holds at the government’s most recent purchase of P29.40 per kilo throughout the year, Escudero said, the government would have to shoulder P10.90 per kilo of NFA rice, which was being sold at a fixed price of P18.50 per kilo.
“The P10.90 per kilo difference will be the ‘political premium’ the Arroyo administration will have to pay to prevent the perceived lack of the main food of 90 million Filipinos from exploding into a crisis fatal to an already faltering government,” Escudero said.
This means, Escudero said, that only P37 billion of the rice import bill could be recouped “assuming completely zero trading, storage and transport losses.”
This would put the Arroyo administration’s ambition of achieving a zero deficit budget this year in jeopardy
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