President Marcos justifies food emergency declaration

MANILA, Philippines — To “force” the prices of rice down, President Marcos justified on Friday the impending declaration of a food security emergency by the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Marcos said rice prices remain high in local markets despite the various interventions made by the government.

“The reason that we are doing this is we have done everything to lower the price of rice, but the market is not being allowed to work properly,” Marcos said in an interview in Leyte.

He said the normal supply and demand curves are so disrupted that “even if we lower (the prices of) all inputs, the selling (prices) remain high.”

“And so, we have to force that price down, and we have to make sure that the market works properly, that there’s no friction cost happening because of so many things,” the President said. “Some of these are illegal. That’s what Congress is investigating now.”

Marcos said the DA is expected to receive the formal recommendation of the National Price Coordinating Council (NPCC) for the declaration of a food security emergency by next week.

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. on Thursday said there is sufficient basis to declare a food security emergency as rice prices remain high despite the imposition of lower tariffs on imported rice.

Asked why rice prices did not decrease despite the tariff cut and the lower global prices, Tiu Laurel replied: “In my opinion, there was some profiteering.”

Rice prices remain high despite declining global rice costs and tariff reductions ordered by Marcos through Executive Order 62 in June last year.

Under the newly enacted Republic Act 12078 or the Agricultural Tariffication Act, the DA – upon the recommendation of the NPCC – may declare a food security emergency to address supply shortages or extraordinary increases in rice prices.

The declaration of food security emergency will allow the National Food Authority (NFA) to sell rice stocks to local government units and other government agencies at a lower price, free up space in NFA warehouses and help local farmers through palay procurement in the upcoming harvest season.

Tiu Laurel earlier said the NFA Council, which he chairs, is initially eyeing to sell the NFA rice stocks to LGUs, government-owned and controlled corporations, Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police for P36 per kilo. At this price, the LGUs and the other government agencies would be able to retail rice for P38 per kilo, he said.

“But by March we want to sell the NFA rice stocks at P33 per kilo so the LGUs and other participating government units can sell it to the market at P35 per kilo,” Tiu Laurel added.

Meanwhile, the maximum suggested retail price of P58 per kilo for imported rice will start on Jan. 20, initially in Metro Manila markets.

Based on monitoring by the DA of Metro Manila markets, imported special rice was still being retailed for P65 per kilo; imported premium rice, as high as P58; imported well-milled rice, P54 per kilo and imported regular milled rice, P48 per kilo.

“Even if you don’t eat rice, lower rice prices help stabilize our economy,” Tiu Laurel had said.

Imports arrive

Imported rice has started to arrive anew this year, with at least 39,261 metric tons of the grains in the first nine days of 2025 as the country recorded an “all-time high” of outsourced grains of 4.87 million MT in 2024.

According to the latest data from the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), as of Jan. 9, the bulk or 79 percent came from Vietnam with 30,554 MT, followed by Thailand, 4,725 MT; Pakistan, 3,150 MT; Myanmar, 520 MT and India, 312 MT.

In 2024, Vietnam also topped the total rice imports with 3.6 million MT.

In 2023, total imported rice reached 3.6 million MT; 3.83 million MT in 2022; 2.77 million MT in 2021; 2.1 million MT in 2020 and 1.86 million MT in 2019.

The extraordinary increase in the retail prices of rice warrants the impending declaration of the food security emergency on the staple, DA Assistant Secretary and spokesman Arnel de Mesa said on Friday.

“RA 12708 has two conditions which would warrant the declaration of a food security emergency. In terms of supply, we have no problem as the country is flooded with rice. What we saw was the extraordinary increase in price. We know that the DA has made many efforts to bring down the prices (of the staple) but there are markets that really sell too high,” De Mesa said.

De Mesa said the NFA has lost its power to sell its stocks to the market to help bring down the high price of rice.

“If there will be a declaration of food security emergency, the NFA can now sell rice to LGUs outside the calamity relief operations,” De Mesa added.

He noted that the warehouses of NFA are currently full of rice stocks, and that as of now the NFA needs to dispose of at least 300,000 metric tons of rice or six million bags of the staple.

“The primary objective is to dispose of the stocks of NFA and eventually help bring down the retail prices of rice,” he said.

At the same time, De Mesa said the food security emergency, once implemented, will only be temporary. “If we can address the stocks of NFA and there will be a reasonable reduction in the retail price of rice, we can lift it ,” he added. — Marc Jayson Cayabyab, Bella Cariaso