President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. began his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) by addressing a critical issue for his administration: the high retail prices of rice.
“The hard lesson of this last year has made it very clear that whatever current data proudly bannering our country as among the best-performing in Asia, means nothing to a Filipino, who is confronted by the price of rice at 45 to 65 pesos per kilo,” Marcos said on Monday, July 22, 2024.
“Although the statistics are good, these mean nothing to our countrymen who face the reality of high prices of goods, especially food, and most especially, rice,” he added.
As of June, rice inflation was at 22.5%, slightly down from 23% in May but still alarmingly high. The recent surge in rice prices has been attributed to high global agricultural commodity prices, exacerbated by India’s export ban on white basmati rice.
To mitigate the high rice prices, Marcos reduced the tariff rate for imported rice. Last month, he issued Executive Order 62, reducing the tariff rate from 35% to 15%. The government anticipates this will lower rice prices by P6 to P7 per kilo.
However, Marcos acknowledged that reducing the rice import tariff rate was only a “solution amid trying times.”
“In spite of the challenges we are facing, we witnessed the country’s highest rice harvest this past year. This surpassed two million tons—our highest harvest since 1987,” the President highlighted.
The President’s third SONA follows the release of Pulse Asia survey results in July, which revealed that 76% of Filipinos disapprove of how his administration is handling inflation. This disapproval rate is a five-percentage point increase from the previous quarter’s 71%.
Only 5% approved of the government’s performance in controlling inflation, with 19% undecided. Furthermore, just 4% of Filipinos believe the Marcos administration fulfilled its campaign promise of reducing rice prices to P20 per kilo.