Makati Mayor and senatorial aspirant Abigail Binay said the government should take more aggressive steps to catch and prosecute those involved in rice cartels and smuggling, emphasizing the need for swift prosecution and visible enforcement to deter price manipulation in the market.
Speaking on Super Radyo DZBB’s “Ikaw na Ba? The Senatorial Interviews” on Tuesday, Binay stressed that existing laws should be fully implemented, and offenders held accountable.
“With the many laws we have when it comes to cartels, profiteering, why hasn’t anyone been jailed yet? Even when smugglers are caught, they are not shown publicly. They just say they will blacklist them. But the question is, has anyone been really charged?” Binay said mostly in Tagalog.
“If the government cannot show how serious it is in enforcing the law, then rice cartels or syndicates will continue to brazenly manipulate and control rice prices,” she added.
Binay also welcomed the proposed declaration of a national food security emergency, which she acknowledged could help ease the surge in rice prices. However, she warned that it would only serve as a temporary solution if middlemen in the supply chain are not eliminated.
“Rice prices would go down if the government directly buys rice products from local farmers, without going through middlemen,” she said.
Under the proposal, the National Food Authority (NFA) would procure rice directly from farmers and sell it at lower prices, bypassing profit-driven intermediaries.
The call for direct government intervention comes amid the implementation of the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act, signed into law last year by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The law imposes severe penalties, including life imprisonment, on those caught smuggling or hoarding agricultural products. Violators may also face fines five times the value of the smuggled goods.
