00:00Despite their hard work, the farmers remain the poorest sector in the country.
00:08First, they don't have capital.
00:12When they farm, they depend on informal lenders, the 5-6.
00:21After harvest, they have a lot of money.
00:25But they only pay their debts.
00:31The rest of the money goes to their children's education.
00:38And because the farmers don't have enough support,
00:42they are not able to provide enough for the needs of the country.
00:50That's why the government's solution is importation
00:54to make up for their shortcomings.
00:57But the problem is that importation is out of control.
01:02There are smugglers there.
01:05As you can see from the raids, they haven't been released for a long time.
01:12So it's hard for the Philippines to be self-sufficient
01:17for a lot of reasons.
01:20First, small landholdings.
01:23We have a lot of calamities, diseases, and policies.
01:33The problem is that when traders hear about importation,
01:42they will lower their prices because they are poor.
01:56We are here at a market in Quezon City
01:58because we heard that apart from the farmers,
02:01even the rice sellers are suffering.
02:06Is this rice imported?
02:09Yes, it's imported.
02:11What is the cheapest and highest price in our local market?
02:18We have 43,000 pesos.
02:25Okay.
02:2643,000 pesos to 57,000 pesos.
02:32Oh, it's really high.
02:35In February 2023, local whale-milled rice became cheaper
02:41at the price of 37,000 to 45,000 pesos per kilo.
02:46In 2024, it increased to 50,000 to 58,000 pesos per kilo.
02:53In 2025, it will go down to 40,000 to 53,000 pesos per kilo.
03:01The price of local rice is not far from imported rice.
03:05But in this store, the cheapest rice is imported.
03:12Sir, where do you sell imported rice?
03:14Which one is the cheapest?
03:16This one.
03:17This one?
03:18The broken one.
03:19Ah, okay.
03:20Why is it cheap, sir?
03:22Because it's cheap.
03:24The other one is broken.
03:30In February, the Department of Agriculture declared a food security emergency on rice.
03:36Its aim is to lower the price of rice in the market.
03:43Well, first and foremost, the key factor that has led us to declare that emergency
03:48is that even if we have already favorable circumstances,
03:55especially with the reduction of the tariff,
03:58and of course, the price of rice worldwide is going down,
04:02we can see that the price of rice is not going down.
04:06We can see that the price of rice is not going down.
04:11It's taking the market so long to adjust to the expected decrease.
04:18In this rice crisis,
04:20it's not just the smugglers and hoarders who are the enemies of the farmers.
04:27We can see that the amount of water is increasing in the fields.
04:39Thank you very much for talking to Eyewitness.
04:41Dear viewers, what can you say about this documentary?
04:45What can you say about this documentary?
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