By Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza, Reporter

THE government’s plan to trial the sale of subsidized P20-per-kilo rice in the Visayas is unsustainable and likely designed to woo voters, a think tank said.

Ibon Foundation Executive Director Jose Enrique A. Africa said the estimated 900,886 poor families in the Visayas, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development registry, will exhaust the government’s subsidy budget of P4.5 billion within five months.

“That would leave over 4.1 million Visayan families still paying the normal expensive price for rice,” he said.

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel, Jr. has said that the Visayas rollout is a pilot program, which could be expanded to the rest of the country.

Mr. Africa said the program would be even more stretched if the subsidy budget were to cover 5.6 million poor families nationwide, or to include the 20.1 million households estimated by the central bank to have no savings.

One other factor that could blow up costs is logistics, Mr. Africa said.

Mr. Laurel said in a statement on Sunday that he has instructed the National Food Authority (NFA) to begin transferring rice stocks to the Visayas.

“It will take several weeks to transfer tens even hundreds of thousands of 50-kilo bags rice from NFA warehouses, particularly from Mindoro to various parts of the Visayas,” according to Mr. Laurel, who also chairs the NFA Council.

The rice for this initiative will come from the NFA’s reserves, which, as of last week, were at a five-year high of 378,157 metric tons — equivalent to 7.56 million bags of rice or equivalent to 10 days’ national consumption.

NFA warehouses in Iloilo currently hold the equivalent of 862,409 sacks of rice, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said.

It said the supplies in Mindoro are needed for areas with limited rice production such as Cebu, Negros Island, Samar, and Leyte.

“The additional stocks for the Visayas will mainly come from Mindoro Island, where the NFA inventory exceeds 830,000 bags of rice,” NFA Administrator Larry Lacson said.

He said transferring 40,000 sacks of rice from Mindoro to Cebu could take up to a month.

The DA has secured clearance from the Commission on Elections to offer P20 rice, a key campaign promise of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. in 2022.

The subsidy for the lower-priced rice will be shared equally by the DA’s Food Terminal, Inc. and participating local government units (LGUs), the DA said.

Mr. Laurel said the Visayas was chosen for the pilot run of the P20-per-kilo rice program because its poverty rate exceeds the national average of 10.9%.

Negros Island and the Eastern Visayas have poverty rates of 22.6% and 20.3%, respectively, he added.

“Governors from the Visayas have also endorsed the program and are ready to share part of the subsidy,” the DA said.

“Initially expected to run only until December, the DA is now reviewing and fine tuning the plan following the directive of President Marcos to expand the initiative to the rest of the country and sustain it through 2028,” it added.

The DA reiterated that the initiative will also help clear space in NFA warehouses, allowing the grains agency to purchase more palay (unmilled rice) from farmers at higher prices.

IBON said the program compromises the NFA’s food security mission “at a time when it’s become even more important given the US-driven uncertainties in the global trading system.”

In the face of rising costs, the government has imposed a maximum suggested retail price for rice and pork, and was considering the same scheme for other commodities whose prices have risen.

The government in February declared a food security emergency that allowed the NFA to release reserves to government agencies, LGUs, and government-backed markets.

But the NFA earlier this month said it is set to auction off its ageing inventory due to low takeup by LGUs.

“Rice and other food prices can be sustainably lowered but only with a long-term strategy of steady protection and subsidies for small farmers and Filipino agriculture,” IBON said.

Also on Sunday, Federation of Free Farmers National Director Raul Q. Montemayor said farmers do not see major policy reversals after the midterm elections in May.

“Every move is politically driven now, but mainly for short term impact,” he said via Viber message.

Former Agriculture Secretary William A. Dar called for a long-term plan that will involve “all stakeholders that will boost productivity, increase incomes as well as make agriculture more competitive and resilient.”

Jayson H. Cainglet of the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura, meanwhile, noted that while farmgate prices are down on almost all commodities, retail prices remain high.

Farmgate prices are at P16-17 per kilo of palay, P90 per kilo of chicken, and P230 per kilo of pork, he said via Viber.