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BICAMERAL DELIBERATIONS

Palace sees smooth sailing for rice tariffication bill


Malacañang expects the rice tariffication bill to go smoothly through deliberations at the bicameral conference committee because the measure has been certified as urgent by President Rodrigo Duterte.

The Senate on Wednesday approved on third and final reading the proposed law that seeks to lift quantitative restrictions on rice and allow private traders to import the commodity from countries of their choice.

“We remain optimistic that the bill would also run smoothly during the bicameral conference committee deliberations by both Houses of Congress,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Thursday.

Lawmakers from the House of Representatives and the Senate are coming up with a harmonized version of the bill to be ratified by Congress and subsequently forwarded to the President for his signature.

“We are likewise confident that through the enactment of this bill into law, we would be able to protect the rice industry from sudden price fluctuations and eventually ease the burden of the Filipino consumers from soaring prices,” Panelo said.

In October, Duterte certified the bill as urgent. He cited the “urgent need to improve availability of rice in the country, prevent artificial rice shortage, reduce the prices of rice in the market, and curtail the prevalence of corruption and cartel domination in the rice industry.”

The House passed its version of the bill in August.

Once the rice bill is signed into law and fully implemented, rice prices will likely go down, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said in July.

Preliminary estimates of the National Economic and Development Authority showed that headline inflation would slow down by 1 percentage point if domestic wholesale prices of drops to the level of imported rice.

Inflation remained steady at a nine-year high of 6.7 percent in October. —VDS, GMA News

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