The campaign promise of President Marcos to lower the price of rice to as low as ₱20 will soon be a reality with a planned trial run in the Visayas region, according to Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel.

Laurel announced this in a press briefing in Cebu City, following a closed-door meeting with the President and 12 governors.

Laurel said the so-called ₱20 program, in which the DA will oversee the selling of ₱20-per-kilo rice, has long been planned as a short-term program that will last until February.

“But our President has given the directive to the [DA] to formulate this to be sustainable and ituloy-tuloy hanggang (that it will continue until) 2028,” he explained.

Participating local government units (LGUs) will oversee the program’s pilot, which could start as early as next week.

Laurel explained that to reach the ₱20 rice, the LGUs and the DA—through Food Terminal Inc. (FTI)—will share the price gap in the current market price of rice of ₱32 to ₱33.

For instance, with a ₱13-gap, the FTI and LGU will shoulder ₱6.50 each to sell the rice at ₱20.

The Agriculture Secretary noted that this program will be piloted in Visayas due to the high buffer stocks in Iloilo, as well as greater number of people in need in the region.

“But of course, the eventual intention of this program, once we sort out all the issues logistically so that we can really see how to operate it, launch it, and manage it, this is nationwide eventually,” he said.

Laurel said the purchase of ₱20 rice will be capped at 10 kilos per week.

Marcos, during the campaign trail in the 2022 national elections that granted him the country’s top seat, ran on a promise to deliver ₱20-per-kilo rice. He has since face criticism for failing to fulfill this.

Laurel, for his part, said achieving such a low price for rice was always his goal when he was appointed to head the DA in November 2023. He replaced Marcos, who had served as the agency’s secretary since he assumed office in 2022.

“Ever since I came into office, that was the basic question. Can we give 20 pesos of rice to the masses? At that time, I always answered that it is an aspiration of this administration,” he said.
“And so, it was always on our mind that the DA team has been working day and night on how to bring this to reality. And there are a lot of steps needed for this to happen,” he added.

Laurel said this was only possible this year as world rice prices have fallen since reaching record levels in recent years.

He added that the DA is more ready to sell such rice due to the need to offload the National Food Authority’s (NFA) warehouses, which currently hold approximately 358,000 tons of rice.