Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr. has instructed the National Food Authority (NFA) to begin repositioning rice stocks to the Visayas in preparation for the launch of the P20-per-kilo rice program.
“It will take several weeks to transfer tens, even hundreds of thousands of 50-kilo bags of rice from NFA warehouses, particularly from Mindoro, to various parts of the Visayas,” said Tiu Laurel, who also chairs the NFA Council.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) already secured clearance from the Commission on Elections to roll out the P20/kilo program, a key campaign promise of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2022.
The subsidy for the lower-priced rice will be shared equally by the DA’s Food Terminal Inc. and participating local government units.
The rice will come from NFA buffer stock, which, as of last week, has reached a five-year high of 378,157 metric tons—equivalent to 7.56 million bags of rice. This is enough to feed Filipinos for 10 days. NFA warehouses in Iloilo alone hold the equivalent of 862,409 sacks of rice.
However, NFA administrator Larry Lacson noted the need to move rice from Mindoro to supplement areas with limited rice production, such as Cebu, Negros Island, Samar, and Leyte.
“The additional stocks for the Visayas will mainly come from Mindoro Island, where the NFA inventory exceeds 830,000 bags of rice,” Lacson said. He explained that transferring 40,000 sacks of rice from Mindoro to Cebu, for example, could take up to a month.
Tiu Laurel said the Visayas was chosen for the pilot run of the P20-per-kilo rice program due to its higher-than-average poverty rate, which exceeds the national average of 10.9 percent.
In some regions, such as Negros Island and Eastern Visayas, the poverty rate is more than double—22.6 percent and 20.3 percent, respectively.
Governors from the Visayas have also endorsed the program and are ready to share part of the subsidy. Initially expected to run only until December, the DA is now reviewing and fine tuning the plan following the directive of President Marcos to expand the initiative to the rest of the country and sustain it through 2028.
In addition to providing affordable rice to millions of financially struggling Filipinos, the initiative will also help clear space in NFA warehouses, allowing the agency to purchase more palay from local farmers at higher prices.
