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Solon bats fur quick oley

ofDS$fDrice ubsidybill'
By JAspER EMMANUELy. ARC,ALA' t,
LA\)flMAI(ER on Tuesday called
for the swift passage of a bill that
would require the Department
of Social Welfare and Development
(DS.'0flD) to buy palay from local planters /
for its rice subsidy program.
@jearcalas Deputy House SpeakerLuis Ray-
mund Villafuerte said he has filed
House Bill 5583 that requites the
DSWD to buy unhusked rice from
local farmets, and distribute this
as subsidy, instead ofcash, to Pan-
tawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program
(4Ps) beneficiaries.
Villafuerte said the DSWD
should do this in partnership with
the Department of Agriculture
(DA) and National Food Author-
ity (NFA) as price support to help
farmers copewith the "detrimental
effects" of the deregulation of the
rice industry.
He noted that under the 2019
General Appropriations Act, the
allocation for rice subsidyamounts
to P28.51 billion, and the same
amounthas been allocatedfor 2020.
Villafuerte's bill is pending at the
House Committee onAppropridtions.
SEE "DSWD," A2

the clrop in paiay farm-gate priies.
DSW'D... "Congress can throw a lifeline to the
CoNTINUaD FtoMAl2 country's beleaguered rice farmers by te-
' versing the continuetl plunge in farm-gate
"The administration's goal of eradicat- prices of palay' by way of a measure that
ing extreme poverty in the country by would let government buy this year a siz-
2040, and lowering poverty incidence to able volume of the grain from local growers
just 11 percent by 2022 wo',id get a sig' foruse in the multibillion-peso annual rice
nificant boost if rural incomes go up by subsidyprogram for low-income families,"
way of higher farm-gate prices of palay, said Villafuerte.
given that mostFilipinos livingbelow the As the retail prices ofdce continued to
poverty line live in the countryside," he fall, the average farm-gate price of paddy
said in a statement. posted a qurnaround in the first week of
He added that both committees at both Januarn rising by 1.02 percent to P15.79
chambers of Congress should fast-track per kilograms, from P15.63 per kg in the
for unhusked rice was 20.85 percent lower
than the quotation of nearlyP20perkglast
year, data from the PSA showed.
HistoricalPSAdatashowedthattheav-
erage farm-gate price of palay is still the
lowest in eight years owing to the det{i-
mental effe-cts ofhigher rice imports.
On an annual basis, the average farm-
gateprice of palayin 2019 settledatP16.20
per kg, 20 percent lower than the average
quotation of P2O.2O per kg in 2018, the
PSA said in a separate report.
Also, the average palay price last year
was the lowest in eight years as its pre-
vious average price of P16.20 per kg was I

the passage of the bill to help local grow- last week of December. recorded in 2012, according to historical i

ers recover the losses theyincurred due to However, the latest average buyingprice PSA data.

P+a 4lz