Bust rice cartels, Duterte dared

ROSALES, Pangasinan , Philippines  —   The chairman of Samahan ng Industriyang Agrikultura (SINAG) yesterday dared President Duterte to bust rice cartels and their protectors as he claimed in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) that he knew them.

“What’s stopping him?” asked SINAG chairman Rosendo So.

So added that the personalities behind rice cartels and their protectors must be exposed. 

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol has said these unscrupulous individuals “must be arrested.”

“(Duterte) should have broadcast (whoever is behind rice cartels) just like what he did with drug lords,” So told The STAR.

“For the past few months, the government keeps on mentioning about rice hoarding and yet no one is caught. (Duterte) should mention who because not doing so is putting every businessman as a possible suspect,” So added. 

SINAG said Duterte should use his power to end the issues hounding the rice sector.

Rice prices remain on an upward trend for seven months now, with wholesale price of well-milled rice now at P41.87 per kilogram while its retail price is at P44.69 per kg, eight percent higher than the previous year’s level.

The wholesale price of regular-milled rice was P38.69 per kg, 10 percent higher than the previous year. Its average retail price also increased nine percent to P41.07 per kg.

The continued price increase of the commodity is still evident despite the arrival of cheaper imported rice from Thailand and Vietnam. 

The National Food Authority (NFA) earlier said prices would start to stabilize at the beginning of June but delays in the unloading of vessels due to weather disturbances slowed down the release of cheaper imported rice in the market.

NFA is expecting consumers to feel the decrease in prices by about P1 to P2 per kg starting next month.

‘Endo’ bill

Meanwhile, labor group Federation of Free Workers (FFW) yesterday hoped the Senate would finally pass the law prohibiting contractualization, as ordered by Duterte.

“The President has passed the end-of-contract (‘endo’ bill) to Congress for the second time. We’d like to think that this time the Senate will listen,” FFW president Sonny Matula said in reaction to Duterte’s SONA.

Matula said FFW viewed Duterte’s statement as a marching order for Congress to enact the pending anti-endo bill.

But Associated Labor Unions (ALU) claimed Duterte was misinformed by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) about the regularization of 300,000 workers.

ALU spokesman Alan Tanjusay said the workers were regularized under their manpower agencies or labor contractors and not by the principal employers.

“These workers have no security of tenure with the company they are working for. They are not paid the standard daily minimum wage. Their mandatory social protection insurance is not remitted by employers and their right to bargain collectively with the principal employer is completely illusory,” Tanjusay said.

He, however, said ALU welcomed Duterte’s admission that he has not fulfilled his promise to end contractualization.

“Now that he has added his voice to the clamor for Congress to immediately pass the Security of Tenure bill, we await his  certification of the bill as an urgent measure,” he said.

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines vice president Luis Corral said Duterte must certify the anti-endo bill.

“We should not support giving tax breaks to locators who continue to employ contractual workers,” Corral said.

Corral called on the government to hire local and not foreign workers in its “Build, Build, Build” program.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III yesterday maintained that Duterte’s SONA was truthful and that the number of regularized workers was based on information submitted by the different DOLE regional offices.

“We have a record of those who have been regularized and our regularized workers are not in manpower agencies, service providers. They are employees of the principal employers,” Bello yesterday said in a radio interview.

He added that companies that were ordered to regularize workers have agreed to implement the regularization program.

According to Bello, most companies have voluntarily regularized workers while there are some that regularize workers upon DOLE’s order.

Bello said he would not provide the President wrong information.

“(But) workers want total prohibition and if they want that they can go to Congress and it would be Congress that would pass a law prohibiting totally… not practical, not real life,” Bello added. – With Louise Maureen Simeon, Mayen Jaymalin