March 04, 2026 l Business Mirror
Eighty percent or 110 million Filipinos eat three cups of rice a day, making it the major staple. A report in a newspaper (not the BusinessMirror) read that 83 percent of Filipinos spend 83 percent of their food budget on rice, making its price a major existential game-changer.
The country, however, has many rice woes and cannot produce enough, that per Worlddostats (2025), the Philippines ranked the third highest rice importer at 861,000 tonnes, just behind China (9,187,000) and Belgium (6,756,000).
Vietnam, which in the past learned rice technology from the International Rice Research Institute, now has 15 million rice farmers growing kilometers of rice fields along the Mekong River. It has good weather compared to the Philippines, which has at least 20 storms every year. Rice technology has helped Vietnam reduce those below the poverty line to 5.71 percent; compared to the Philippines’s 2023 figure of 15.5 percent or 17.5 million Filipinos. In fact, the Philippines buys a lot of rice from Vietnam, in stark irony.
The government earlier reduced rice tariffs from 40 percent to 35 percent to align with the Asean (Executive Order 135). The apparent obsession of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on bringing down the price of rice, reduced the tax further to 15 percent last year. In the “Welfare Economics” mode, Marcos prefers to protect the 110 million rice-eating Filipinos from the mere 2.4 million rice farmers who will suffer from the tariff cut.
Rice industry woes
LET’S start with bad weather and the corrupted flood control system, for one. Our agricultural farmers are aging —their children prefer office work, delivery systems and call centers to the back-breaking field work. Agriculture is backward, contributing only at a high of only 15 percent annually to the country’s gross domestic product.
According to an educator, teaching farming in the country has largely been centered on pests, soil, and seed control on an inefficient one-hectare land instead of educating students on a bigger-farms business model. Industry experts also lament that the Department of Agriculture support has focused 50 percent of the time on seeds and fertilizer distribution, and little on finance support, but seems oblivious that the supply chain is largely broken. This means excess rice and high-value crops during harvest seasons, depressing prices.
Irrigation, a key factor, will only be “self-sufficient” for the country by 2028, according to the National Irrigation Authority itself, acknowledging a shortage of dams. Currently, there are only 438 major (Angat, Ipo, San Roque, Libtong, and Jalaur River) dams and 423 smaller dams. Thus, only 47 percent of the 3.16 million hectares of potentially irrigable areas are serviced by the dams. There are worse facts.
While the NIA measures its success by the number of dams built, the sad fact is, according to industry observers, only 66 percent of the dam canals are functioning. Not counting the shady diversion of some dam water by residents for other commercial purposes.
All these are contributory, perhaps to the sad statistics that 50 percent of the populace still consider themselves poor since their staple food is sometimes beyond reach, forcing many of the poor (family of four) to settle for one- or two-day meals instead of three.
Given that, one is dismayed that so much confidential funds and hijacked GAA (national budget) money could not be used to subsidize rice prices, which has become an existential issue for the many who are poor.
***The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of his office as well as FINEX. For comments, email bingo8dejaresco@gmail.com. Photo is from Pinterest.