Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda (Facebook)

Local supermarkets and big retailers have been given fair warning by the House quinta-committee (quinta-comm) in its investigation on the prevailing high prices of rice--the country's staple food.

The quinta-comm, also known as the Murang Pagkain Super-committee, is led by its overall chairman Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda.

“I am warning supermarkets and big groceries. We have received reports that imported well milled rice is being labelled as premium rice and sold at P70 per kilo in supermarkets. That means they earn as much as P30 pesos per kilo," Salceda said in a statement Tuesday, Dec. 17.

This early, Salceda said the quinta-comm will invite representatives from this sector once it reconvenes.

"We disaggregated market returns and as much as 48 percent of excess returns are at the wholesale to retail level," said the economist-solon.

"I also do not believe in the excuse given by both the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) and the Grains Retailers Confederation of the Philippines that the reason for stubborn price increases is consumer preferences for premium rice," he said.

The BPI is under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

"We checked the latest reference values, and even the highest quality rice from Vietnam is just P41 per kilo after duties. That doesn’t explain why prices are stubborn at P56," Salceda noted.

He added: "And that does not match actual average import prices of P31 per kilo after duties — that is not premium price. 

"So, next time I get a reason like that, the committee will be forced to remind people that there are consequences to lying under oath," said Salceda. 

DA's 'powerless' excuse rejected

Earlier, the quinta-comm prodded the DA to step up and put an end to the "death spiral" when it comes to rice prices.

Salceda said DA’s perennial retort that they are powerless to stop abuse in the rice market will no longer do. It gives license to price manipulators to run amok and prey on the Filipino family, he said.

"Rice prices have become something of a death spiral. And with the DA publicly saying they are powerless under the law, price manipulators are even more emboldened to do as they please," he said.

"We have reviewed the statute books for what tools the DA can use to end rice price abuse. We found several laws that have not been fully repealed, including RA 509, which would allow the DA a wide range of powers as soon as the President declares a 'rice emergency'," the veteran solon said. 

President Quirino did this in 1948, in response to widespread hoarding in the rice market. "I urge the DA to scour the substantial body of laws enacted over the decades and mobilize these laws to end the climate of economic impunity in the rice market."

"We must also use all the organs and powers of the state, from post-clearance inspections of import warehouses, to random inspections in markets, to remove the sense that there is no sheriff in town," said the Bicolano.