Makati City Mayor and senatorial aspirant Abby Binay urged the government to intensify efforts against rice cartels and smugglers, emphasizing the importance of prosecuting and holding offenders accountable to stop price manipulation.

Makati City Mayor Abby Binay

The mayor made the statement during an interview with radio station dzBB on Monday, Jan. 20, for senatorial candidates, emphasizing that the full force of the law should be applied and perpetrators should be imprisoned to demonstrate the government's resolve to stop such practices.
 
“Sa dami ng mga batas natin when it comes to cartel, profiteering, bakit wala pa yatang nakakulong? ... Pati smuggler, 'pag nahuli 'di naman nila ipinapakita, hindi nila inilalabas. Sinasabi lang nila iba-blacklist... Pero ang tanong, mayroon ba tayong nasampolan man lang? (With all the laws that we have against cartels and profiteering, why is it that no one has been jailed yet? Even when smugglers are caught, they’re not publicly shown. They just say they’re blacklisted... But the question is, have we even caught anyone as an example?),” Binay said.
 
She said rice cartels will continue manipulating prices if the government fails to show its seriousness in stopping them. 
 
“If wala po tayong naipapakita na seryoso ang gobyerno sa pagpapatupad ng batas, then paulit-ulit na gagawin ng mga cartel o mga sindikato na malalakas ang loob na magkontrol ng presyo (If we don’t show that the government is serious about enforcing the law, then cartels or syndicates will continue to control prices and will do it over and over again),” she added.
 
The mayor also supported the declaration of a national food security emergency to tackle rising rice prices. However, she said it would only provide temporary relief unless middlemen were completely removed.
 
“Rice prices would go down if the government directly buys rice products from local farmers without going through middlemen,” she explained.
 
The proposed declaration of a national food security emergency was reportedly aimed at allowing the National Food Authority (NFA) to purchase rice from local farmers and sell it at a lower price.
 
“Dapat bilhin ng gobyerno ang ani ng mga magsasaka para hindi na ito dumaan sa mga middleman. Ang problema natin, yumayaman ang middlemen (The government should buy rice directly from farmers instead of through middlemen who are the ones making profits),” the mayor said.
 
In 2024, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. signed the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act (AGES) into law, which imposes stiffer penalties against smugglers and hoarders of agricultural food products, including cartels.
 
Violators of the law face a fine five times the value of the smuggled or hoarded agricultural or fishery products and life imprisonment if proven guilty.