Panayam kay Raul Montemayor, Nat'l Manager, Federation of Free Farmers (Feb. 4, 2025) | Balitanghali - video Dailymotion

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00:00Now, on the declaration of food security emergency by the Department of Agriculture,

00:04we will talk to the Federation of Free Farmers' National Manager, Raul Montemayor.

00:09Good morning to you and welcome to Balitang Hali.

00:13Yes, good afternoon.

00:15It's already afternoon.

00:18For you, sir, is it right to declare a food security emergency on rice?

00:23Now, there's no problem with the supply, but the price is too high.

00:30Well, the intention is good and we support the intention of declaring a food emergency.

00:36However, their basis for declaring that emergency, we have a bit of confusion.

00:44Because according to their explanation, the price increase happened in 2023.

00:52But why are they just now declaring the emergency?

00:56Because of the fire. It's been a long time since there was a fire, but they just now declared the emergency.

01:01What do you see as the possible reason why the increase happened in 2023 and they just now declared it?

01:12It's true that rice is still a bit expensive.

01:16Their plan is to release the stocks of the NFA.

01:22It can be done if there's an emergency declaration, by the way.

01:26That's their legal basis.

01:28When they sell it at a low price, I understand it's already P35, not P38.

01:34They can lower the price and they can lower the price of private traders.

01:43But the P35 is too low and it cannot be used by the private sector.

01:52Okay. Will that have an effect on our local farmers?

01:56That's our problem because the retail price is P35 per kilo,

02:03the equivalent of rice is P17 per kilo.

02:07At that price, half of the farmers will lose money.

02:12Yes.

02:13Half of them will have a low income.

02:16But if it's not a declaration of food security for rice,

02:22what is the step that you see as the right thing to do to reduce the price of rice?

02:28One step that they're not doing is to lower the price of the importers.

02:34It's clear that when the tariff was lowered last July from 35 percent to 15 percent,

02:42the importers were able to save P6 to P7 in paying the tariff.

02:48So the price of rice also decreased.

02:51In addition to that, the international price became cheaper.

02:55There's no reason why it didn't decrease, except if the traders increased their income.

03:01Okay. I also talked to Secretary Tew Laurel earlier and he mentioned that he doesn't believe that there's a big cartel for rice.

03:10Instead, the imposition comes from those who want to earn from the traders or those who are selling.

03:18What is your comment on that?

03:19That's right. We're not talking about cartel.

03:22We're talking about profiteering.

03:25The importers were able to import the rice at a low price.

03:30They didn't increase the tariff.

03:35They still sold to wholesalers or wholesalers still sold to retailers.

03:41Retailers still sold to consumers.

03:45The P1 that was saved from the tariff didn't reach the end.

03:51All right. Thank you very much for your time, sir.

03:56We will also be watching.

03:59Thank you. Thank you.

04:00That was Federation of Free Farmers National Manager Raul Montemayor.

Panayam kay Raul Montemayor, Nat'l Manager, Federation of Free Farmers (Feb. 4, 2025) | Balitanghali

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