BENEFICIALITY SPEECH – RICE TARIFFICATION SHOULD NOT BE

REPEALED

1. Ensuring food security should go hand in hand with protecting the welfare of
our farmers. We understand their plight. However we need to find a balance
between protecting our farmers and protecting Filipino consumers.

2. Your Honors, tonight, Team Cor Jesu strongly argues that repealing Rice
Tariffication Law is not beneficial for both Filipino rice farmers and Filipino
consumers because doing so would threaten the country’s food security and
might do further harm than good.

3. But before I proceed Your Honors, allow me to oppose the erroneous claims
of the Affirmative.
a.
b.
c.

4. Now on to my arguments.

5. FIRST, the rice tariffication law proves beneficial not only to local
farmers, but to local consumers as well.

6. According to Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Pernia, the rice tariffication

law helps pull down overall inflation as it continues to help improve the rice
inventory of the country.

7. The government is exerting all efforts to boost the country’s buffer stock to
provide affordable rice to Filipino consumers, particularly those from the
marginalized sector.

8. According to the 2012 Family Income and Expenditure Survey, lower

income groups tend to allocate 40% of their income to rice. With the
implementation of the RTL, rice has become more affordable for the
marginalized sector, as evidenced by the fallen retail prices presented by
PSA. Rice prices were observed to have dropped by 8.9%, or an average of
P8 per kilogram, in September 2019.

9. Indubitably, the RTL significantly benefits the 100 million consumers of

rice in the Philippines, including the poorest of the poor.
10.In effect, rice tariffication helps mitigate the high level of malnutrition.
Lower rice prices means improved purchasing power for the average
consumers, enabling them to buy other nutritious food commodities, and
thereby raising the nutritional level of the family, particularly the children.

11.Accordingly, the Philippine Statistics Authority also reported last October 4,

2019 that the country’s headline inflation slowed further to 0.9% in
September this year, the lowest rate in 40 months.

12.This can be attributed to softer price adjustments observed in nearly all

commodities and base effects. This also brings the year-to-date inflation to
2.8%, which is well within the government’s 2019 inflation target of 2.0 to
4.0 percent.

13.SECOND, with the Rice tariffication law, the Philippines is complying

with its international trade obligation of moving away from a QR-
regime.

14.During the Philippines’ trade policy review last year, WTO-members sent
multiple inquiries about the country’s obligation to move away from a QR-
regime.

15.The RTL was implemented in order to spare the country from being
economically-sanctioned by its trading partners, and to comply with its
Constitutional mandate of maintaining amity with other nations.

16.According to Ambassador Teehankee, Representative to the Philippine

Mission to the WTO, other nations’ perception of the Philippines as a
trading partner has improved after the declared policy of ending its
quantitative restrictions on rice importation, and making progress towards
tariffication.

17.Thus, the Philippines can now apply to have special treatment in certain
products by complying with the provisions under the deal as provided by
Annex 5 of the Agreement on Agriculture which was negotiated during the
Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

18. With that your honors, we continue to uphold the exigency of having the rice
tariffication law to protect both local farmers and local consumers. Thank
you!