Rice Retailers Not Patriots -- They Wouldn’t Sell at a Loss

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I could not fathom Grains Retailers Confederation of the Philippines (GRECON) President James Magbanua exhorting rice retailers in the country to sell at losses for one week their regular and well-milled staple before they finalize their stance against the national government.

According to Executive Order 39 (Imposition of Price Ceilings on Rice) signed by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., published in a newspaper of national circulation and took effect last September 5, rice retailers should sell the two kinds of staple at lower prices. Regular and well-milled at P41 and P45, respectively, per kilo each.

Photo credit: Bombo Radyo

According to GRECON spokesman Orly Manuntag, these retailers bought each of these brands at P46 and P50 a kilo and forced to sell each at a loss of P5.

During the consultation with the government, Manuntag said a retailer will lose at least P49,000 in just one week of the implementation of the price cap.

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I would not buy the idea that these businessmen would allow themselves to financially bleed for one week in the name of patriotism at a cost of P49,000. Susmariosep! There is no Love of Country for the Filipino traders to be altruistic. We are not fighting in a war against the greedy and bully China that the P49,000 is each of their contribution to the war effort.

 These businessmen saw themselves fighting a negligent inutile government against hoarders, profiteers, cartels, and what have you who thumb their noses to the law enforcers. They see a government that arbitrarily impose these price caps in their throat because it failed to neutralize these malefactors who exploit the spike of prices of rice in the international market and the lean season in the national market.

This is a fight, these small bizmen saw, about a government whose President promised to all and sundry in the May 2022 election for their votes that in case he was elected in the highest office of the Flipland, err, Filipino Land the price of the staple would plunge to P20 a kilo. But instead the price goes south tragically that earned him the wrath and ridicule of his constituents.

Every one of these rice traders would either close their store or stall or hide their regular and well-milled rice instead of losing that P49,000 for the week's grace period GRECON has posits. Only the air is free in this forsaken country, son of a gun!.

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The brouhaha brought by E.O 39 even cost the job of a highly respected Department of Finance (DoF) Undersecretary Cielo Magno. Magno - a Professor of the University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE) loaned to DoF - was sacked recently by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin after posting a statement at Facebook: “Since the commodity is priced below the economically sensible level—or cheaper than it should be—more people want it, such that some buyers will find it sold out because of increased demand”.

Magno made an added comment on the price ceiling graph: “I miss teaching..(emoji of a classroom teacher).”

That post even elicited comment from Karl Chua the young former National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Chief in the last part of the term of President Rodrigo Duterte.

“[You] can teach it in [the] Cabinet,” Chua said.

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This where I differed with Magno. As a former Economics college Prof myself, her statement that the supply of cheap rice would immediately be sold out as more buyers patronized it could be wrong. Panicking buyers could not deplete it because the profit motivated sellers beat them in a draw by hiding the staple in their bodega or stockroom instead of selling it at a loss.

The Facebook comment was probably the last straw that broke the camel’s back on the part of the Palace after Magno – a straight shooter-, crossed path with powerful personalities in the government when she proposed to impose more taxes on the mining industry.

Jaybee Garganera, national coordinator of anti-mining coalition Alyansa Tigil Mina found her resignation unsurprising as Magno was outspoken advocates on transparency and good governance. For one, her advocacy for an increase taxes on mining corporations was clearly inconsistent with the agenda of House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romualdez.

Speaker Romualdez – a cousin of the President - is tied to the mining industry. He is son of the late Benjamin Romualdez - the younger bro of the Super Maam Imeldefic -, former president and chief executive officer of copper and gold mining behemoth Benguet Corp.

Romualdez is a board of director of nickel mining firm Marcventures Holdings. The Speaker set up too a mining subsidiary last year worth US$2.7 million.

Among Marcos Jr’s staunchest political allies with high stakes in the mining sector are Senator Cynthia Villar, chair of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, her son Senator Mark Villar, owner of Prime Asset Ventures Inc, the parent company of TVI Resources Development Phils. Inc., which produces nickel. Senator Sherwin Gatchalian whose family-owned Wellex Group whose mining subsidiary extracts nickel and limestone in the country.