NAGPAHAYAG ng pagkadismaya si Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, ang co-chair ng Murang Pagkain Supercommittee ng Kamara de Representantes na nagpe-preside sa mga pagdinig ng quinta committee, sa kakayanan ng Department of Agtriculture (DA) na maibaba ang presyo ng bigas sa merkado.

Ito ang buong pahayag ni Salceda:

“The 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.

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.

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 We found several laws that have not been fully repealed, including RA 509, which would allow the DA a wide range of powers as soon as the President declares a ‘rice emergency.’ 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.”

AUTHOR PROFILE

People's Tonight