This was a day after Duterte, in a press conference in Negros Occidental, said she thought the President was just giving offer “false hopes” to the people since rice sold that cheap may not be “fit for human consumption but only for animals.” “If you sell rice at P20 per kilo, make sure it can be eaten by people. And why was there a meeting at the Cebu capitol with the governors, the majority of the governors in the Visayas. In response, Castro said critics “have been making an issue out of this even before, that the President will not be able to fulfill his aspiration to make rice available at P20 per kilo.’’ “Now that it has been fulfilled by the President, why are they being negative about this?” she said in a Palace briefing. She said Visayas was chosen as the pilot region because the NFA warehouses in the region had excess stocks and local officials were willing to cooperate in the plan. The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) agreed that the program is difficult to sustain as the selling price is “artificially low.” According to FFF national manager Raul Montemayor, the government is set to lose P25 a kilo if the NFA buys palay (unmilled rice) at P24 a kilo while its break-even price in selling milled rice is at P45. Read Full Story
