WHILE one can cite other factors that contributed to the steep rise in rice prices such that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had to order a price cap of P41 per kilogram for regular milled rice and P45 for well-milled rice, the Chief Executive's insistence on concurrently being the Agriculture secretary inarguably helped lead to this sorry state.
Never before has a president held such a crucial position — and really on an absentee basis — 14 months into his presidency. It's just common sense in managing a large organization: You can't have the captain concurrently as chief engineer looking after the engines at the lowest deck.One result is that we have even been getting conflicting reports from the Agriculture department on such crucial data as rice stocks.
A huge chunk of retail food prices is also due to transport costs. Fishermen's biggest cost is fuel for their boats.The past Rodrigo Duterte government undertook a P3 billion fuel subsidy program for farmers to mitigate rising fuel costs. Has the current administration ordered studies to find out the bottlenecks in the distribution of such subsidies, and how much more is needed? Prices of that sector's main output — rice and sugar — and even vegetables have risen to historic highs.
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