It's the land, moron

TO ADDRESS the rice crisis, both Houses of Congress are said to be reviewing existing laws that seek to impose harsher penalties against profiteers and at the same time reform the importation procedures. On the part of the lower house, it was reported that House Speaker Prospero Nograles called for a review of RA 7581 or the Price Act to give a sharper bite to the law against hoarding, price manipulation and profiteering. "It's time we revisit RA 7581 to determine how to further discourage, if not totally end, illegal acts of manipulating the prices of any basic commodity especially during such time that government is dealing with the continuing rise in the prices of rice and even fuel," Nograles was reported as saying. The Prosperous One furthered that the looming rice shortage has given Congress all the reason "to study how to add teeth to the law to fully deter price manipulation." Section 5 of RA 7581 considers hoarding, profiteering, and cartel formation as among the illegal acts tied to the manipulation of the price of any basic necessity or prime commodity. While Section 15 states that any person who commits price manipulation of any basic necessity or commodity shall suffer the penalty of imprisonment for a period of not less than five years nor more than 15 years, and pay the penalty of not less than P5,000 nor more than P2,000,000. So, let us make violation of the Price Act a heinous crime, being a most despicable act inflicted on the poorest and most powerless of the citizenry? At the upper chamber, Senate President Manuel Villar filed a bill that proposes the use of the National Food Authority (NFA) funds for the purchase of locally-produced palay and authorize farmer cooperatives to take care of rice importation. The presidential timber’s bill in effect seeks to end the NFA monopoly in rice importation. Said he: "This exclusivity clause that authorizes only the NFA to import rice has to be repealed. Attended by allegations of corruption, the system no longer works and has to be reformed to include other sectors of society." And, to Mr. Sipag at Tiaga, authorizing farmer cooperatives and organizations to import rice is one great way to increase their income, as "the farming sector has always been at the receiving end of any importation as this tends to dampen or lower the price of palay resulting in no or low income for our farmers. If their collective organization is given the privilege of doing rice importation, they are given an opportunity to earn additional income." Villar’s bill also proposes “to put NFA funds to use only in purchasing locally produced palay or farmer imports for food security requirements of the country." This would re-inspire farmers who, he said, have lost the incentive to plant rice because of low profitability and high price of farm inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. Villar should realize that re-inspiring the farmers to regain their incentive to plant rice goes beyond “empowering” them with fertilizers and pesticides. For one, there is the injurious insult or insulting injury done on the farmers by the P700-million fertilizer scam of Joc-Joc Bolante.
Villar’s and Nograles’ initiatives to address the rice crisis are but palliatives to alleviate the pain caused by the cancerous disease. Not to cure it, so to speak.
It’s not the laws, wise guys. It’s the land, morons.
Robert Zeigler, president of the International Rice Research Institute made this revelation: Rice yields in the Philippines are nearly double those of Thailand – the world’s top rice exporter. But there is not enough land here.
So, there. With fertile ricelands being irretrievably converted to industrial, commercial and residential sites, it would not be too long before the rice paddy will be something we will just see in Amorsolo paintings.
So, there should look our legislators for the appropriate answers. But will they? Especially the Honorable Senate President whose vast empire is built upon agricultural lands converted to housing subdivisions.