The Price of Rice and the Price of Politics

 by Roger B. Rueda, PhD

Rice is not just a grain in the Philippines—it is an emotion. It is at the heart of our daily survival and, naturally, at the center of our political incompetence.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) says that the “happy balance” for rice prices is ₱42 per kilo. This is their way of saying, “Be grateful, peasant. It could be worse.” Meanwhile, farmer groups argue that this price does not ensure affordability for consumers nor fairness for those who toil in the fields. But of course, fairness is never the strong suit of our political decision-makers.

For context, the farmgate price of palay—the raw, unprocessed form of rice—has fallen dramatically. Some farmers are forced to sell their produce for as low as ₱14 per kilo, making it almost impossible for them to recover production costs, let alone make a decent living. Meanwhile, the government tells us that our rice prices are cheaper than Thailand’s and China’s, as if that should make us feel any better while we empty our pockets at the palengke.

The numbers alone tell you what the real problem is: not just rice prices, but the systemic abandonment of local farmers. Farmers are drowning in debts, burdened by expensive fertilizers, and crushed by middlemen who dictate palay prices. But instead of providing real solutions, the government prefers a shortcut—importation. And why? Because importation makes some people very, very rich.

And here is the biggest tragedy: we used to be a rice-producing giant. But now, with the Rice Tariffication Law, the National Food Authority (NFA) no longer regulates rice prices or imports, rendering it as powerless as an election promise. The law was supposed to lower rice prices. Instead, it has turned us into a nation permanently at the mercy of foreign suppliers and price fluctuations.

So what do we do? Bantay Bigas and Amihan propose that rice should be subsidized at ₱32 per kilo. But the bigger question is this: why must our farmers always beg for subsidies when they should already be thriving? Why does the government have money for foreign loans, for unnecessary travels, and for intelligence funds that never seem to yield intelligence—but not for the backbone of our food security?

In the end, rice prices will keep rising, but the real cost is this: every time we fail our farmers, we lose a piece of our national dignity. We are not just paying more for rice—we are paying for decades of neglect, corruption, and incompetence. And that is the true price of politics.

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