A senior opposition lawmaker on Thursday, May 20, urged Congress to recall the authority granted President Rodrigo Duterte to fix tariff rates amid mounting protests against the reduction of tariff rates on rice and pork imports.
House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate said Duterte has issued two executive orders that are “grossly anti-farmer” for lowering tariffs on imports, saying that these are detrimental to the interest of local rice producers and hog raisers.
"It seems that Pres.Duterte is exploiting the Congress delegated powers to fix tariff rates to the detriment of Filipino farmers and local agriculture, yet, all for the benefit of rice and hog exporting countries,” lamented Zarate.
He noted that instead of helping farmers recover from the harsh effects of the 2019 coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic, Duterte’s directives placed them in even worse situation.
“Lalong magugutom ang mga magsasaka at kanilang pamilya at pinapatay din nito ang lokal na agrikultura (Hunger among farmers and their family will turn for the worse because it is also killing local agriculture)”he said.
Congress merely delegated to the president the power to set tariff rates on imports in order to balance the interests of local farmers and consumers.
"First, the Palace issued Executive Order (EO) 128 that reduced tariff rates on pork imports from 40 percent to 15 percent out quota and 30 percent to 5 percent in quota for one year. Now, Duterte released EO 135 that would lower tariffs on rice imports from 40 percent for those imported within the minimum access volume (MAV) and 50 percent for those outside it,” said Zarate.
He stressed; “Such orders put the lives and livelihood of millions of farmers and hograisers in peril.” "Majority of farmers groups and hog raisers opposed these liberalization orders along with senators and congressmen pushing Malacanang to lower the tariffs cut and importation of pork but now it is doing it all over again with rice imports," said the opposition leader said.
"This abuse of delegated power must be stopped especially since our rice supply even surpasses this quarter's targets and the ones who benefit from more importation are the big importers and their cohorts,” stated Zarate.
In a Makabayan bloc presser on Thursday, ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro said the promise of better deal for consumers under the Rice Tarrification Law was never despite its two year implementation.
She pointed out that rice prices remained high since the implementation of the law merely resulted in reduction of cost of less than P4.