The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) is urging the new Senate leadership to assess the country’s trade performance in its first year as a member of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement.
The group also criticized proposals by the economic managers to reduce the tariff on rice and other commodities, saying these contradict earlier assurances at the Senate RCEP hearings the tariff structure over the commodities would remain in place.
Finance Secretary Ralph Recto recently proposed to cut the tariff on rice from 35 percent to 17.5 percent in an attempt to moderate its price.
“We call on Senate president Francis Escudero to immediately reorganize and convene its RCEP oversight committee. We need to know if the government lived up to its promises to the agricultural sector,” said Raul Montemayor, FFF national manager, in a statement.
The group urged the Senate to validate if the promised gains from RCEP materialized as well as for the Congress to honor its commitment to boost the budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA).
“A large part of the proposed increase in the DA’s 2025 budget is placed in Tier 2, where it will have to compete with proposals from all other government agencies. How the DA budget is finally configured will show whether the Senators were serious in their commitments when they approved the RCEP,” Montemayor said.
The RCEP is a consolidation of trade agreements between and among the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations together with China, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Senate Resolution 42 dated 21 February 2023 ratified Philippine accession to the RCEP. The agreement entered into force on 2 June 2023.
The FFF said the resolution included a list of the government’s commitment to assist the agricultural sector to allay concerns on the preparedness of Filipino farmers to compete against imports and take advantage of export opportunities.
The group said an oversight committee was also formed to regularly monitor and review the commitments and their impact on farmers.
The FFF said a scheduled meeting of the Oversight Committee on 22 May was cancelled following the change in Senate leadership and the resignation of Senator Loren Legarda as committee head.
