The government reacts as the price of rice in the Philippines has nearly doubled since the beginning of the year.
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: April 27, 2008
MANILA: Poor Filipinos who are reeling from high food prices unseen since the 1970s will get some relief this week, when the Philippine government starts to distribute “rice passes” to the most impoverished families across the country, officials said Sunday.
The government has also set in motion an unprecedented relief program that would entail the distribution of cash subsidies amounting to about 1,400 pesos, or $33, a month to the poorest Filipino families.
These measures are just two of several implemented by the government as it tries to mitigate the effects of the global food crunch that has hit poor countries like the Philippines the hardest.
The cash subsidies, which will be distributed by the government-owned Land Bank of the Philippines through ATM cards, “should provide immediate emergency assistance to the extremely poor,” Esperanza Cabral, the social-welfare secretary, said Sunday.
The program will cost the government an estimated five billion pesos a year and should benefit about 300,000 families in the 20 poorest provinces. Each family will receive 500 pesos a month and an additional 300 pesos monthly support for each child, with a maximum of three children. A typical Filipino household has more than three children.
Cabral said the cash-subsidy program was already under way in five provinces outside of the capital and two cities in the greater Manila area.
Earlier this month, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said her government would make sure to “put food on the tables of our people.” The food crisis, she said, was “putting a strain on all hardworking Filipinos.”
“We need to prevent this strain on individuals and economies from becoming a crisis by taking decisive action,” she added.
On Tuesday, the Social Welfare Department will begin distributing “Family Access Cards” that will entitle families with a monthly income of less than 5,000 pesos to buy government-subsidized rice. The rice passes, Cabral said, would ensure that the poorest Filipinos be prioritized in the rationing of rice.
The National Food Authority, the government rice-trading agency, said last week that the rice passes would help the authorities monitor distribution. Last week, the agency reported incidents of unscrupulous traders buying government-subsidized rice and then selling it at higher prices. The cards, officials said, would have bar codes and would set off alarms if fraud was detected, including any attempts to buy more than the maximum amount allowed.
The rice cards will only be distributed when the National Food Authority withdraws its subsidized rice from public markets, a move opposed by many, although the government maintains selling directly to consumers is one way to keep the price low. A kilogram of the government-subsidized rice costs 18.25 pesos, or roughly half the price of rice being sold in grocery stores.
Since the beginning of the year, the price of rice in the Philippines has nearly doubled.
The Philippines is now the world’s largest rice importer by metric tons, according to March 2008 figures released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
