Wishing out loud

Like defeat, a bad idea is an orphan.

You can tell whether the rice price cap is a good or bad idea from the lack of anyone taking direct responsibility for it.

It doesn’t speak well of policy making in this administration that for a measure as significant as a price cap on rice, there was little consultation conducted. Not with the rice retailers, who have been directly hit. And not with the economic team, whose head admitted being “shocked” by the announcement of a price cap.

On Monday, the economic team moved to soften the impact – not of the price ceilings, but of the disclosure that the team was kept out of the loop – by expressing support for the price cap, while stressing that it should be only for the short term.

How short? A review is set within two weeks, according to the Department of Trade and Industry, which is being presented as the instigator of the price cap along with the Department of Agriculture (DA).

It’s doubtful that the agriculture experts in the DA, Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian who’s in charge of rice industry development as well as Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban endorsed the price ceilings. As for the DA secretary himself, nothing comes between him and Formula One in Singapore, where he’s celebrating his 66th birthday today. Crisis in the DA? What crisis?

Maybe he’s all set to finally let go of his Cabinet position. The economic team’s leader, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno, has said tapping Arsenio Balisacan, an agricultural economist, as permanent DA secretary is a “sound proposal.” But Balisacan told me yesterday that there has been “no such offer” to him.

If he agrees to move from socioeconomic planning to agriculture, Balisacan can be expected to end the price caps as soon as politically feasible rather than when prices soften under normal market conditions.

*      *      *

Around the world, the news this week is about surging global rice prices because of the export ban imposed by India, projections about El Niño, high oil prices and the continuing war in Ukraine. This is contrary to that bizarre tale about the price caps in the Philippines pulling down global prices by 21 percent from the July rates. Really, what are they smoking at the House of Representatives?

The ecstatic support for the price caps is coming mostly from congressmen who are giving fulsome praise to Speaker Martin Romualdez, lead raider of warehouses where rice is supposedly being hoarded.

His statement about global rice prices plus the sycophantic praises have fueled speculation that the Speaker is the genius behind the rice price caps, followed by a P2-billion subsidy for the rice retailers. It could explain how the normally influential economic team was kept out of the loop on such a major move, with the measure carried out even faster than the House’s railroading of the bill creating the Maharlika Investment Fund.

Economists have wondered why the government didn’t just subsidize the rice consumption of low-income consumers instead of tinkering with normal market forces.

Maybe the P20-a-kilo-rice administration didn’t like seeing all those images of rice being retailed at P50 to P60 a kilo.

Now there’s rice at P41 and P45. As carinderia owners have pointed out, however, and as images have shown, the cheap rice looks barely fit for consumption by regular rice eaters, starting with the color, which is yellowish dirty white.

Carinderias have simply increased the price of their steamed special rice, from the previous P10 a cup to P12 to P15. At P12, the owners groan that they’re just breaking even. They’ve already taken a hit from the sky-high prices of sugar, which drastically cut their profit margins for turon, banana-Q and sa malamig.

“Unli” rice promos will likely be amended, priced higher or put on hold.

Some eatery operators have pointed out that people who buy cooked food even from ambulant roadside stalls would scrimp on everything in their meal except rice. And poor quality rice irritates these customers.

*      *      *

Yesterday at the subdivisions in my part of town, many of the neighborhood rice dealers were closed. One of the largest sold only four rice varieties, all tagged as “special” and priced at P55 and P60 a kilo. The rest of the store space where rice used to be displayed was stocked instead with fresh eggs and charcoal for grills. Another large dealer had no regular or well-milled rice on stock; the lowest priced special rice was at P53 a kilo. Premium “malagkit” varieties are now hitting P100 a kilo.

Smaller retailers had no rice on their shelves.

Economists have asked: which sector is the price ceiling trying to please? Retailers and institutional users are unhappy, and ordinary consumers are unimpressed.

Members of the economic team, consulted for their opinion only after the fact and now saddled with sourcing funds for yet another multibillion-peso subsidy, have issued statements of support that seem to have been extracted at gunpoint.

This leaves the possibility that the measure sprung mainly from political considerations. If no one claims authorship of the measure, all eyes will inevitably turn to the secretary of agriculture… if he’s around.

Yesterday, the DA chief said his birthday wish is for “a better state of agriculture.”

It would help if the secretary of agriculture is working full time and focused on the job. Otherwise, this “better state” of agriculture would remain in the realm of wish ko lang.