o now we come to a
point where the poor would need access cards to be able to buy cheap government
rice while soldiers and policemen are guaranteed access to the same rice. The
wonder is why government is crowing about the patently unfair scheme.
The entry level salary of policemen is P12,000 a month. For
soldiers it is about P10,000. Assuming there’s only one bread winner in the
family, those incomes are more than twice the P4,500 maximum for families
entitled to get access cards for P18.25 a kilo rice.
And with soldiers and policemen entitled to subsidized rice,
what about teachers (who have the same entry level salaries as policemen) and
the millions of other government workers who receive much less in salaries?
Here is an early example of the folly of targeting
beneficiaries of cheap rice via non-market mechanisms. Lobbying for specific
sectors comes into play. Later, when targeted distribution is "devolved" to
local government units, we will surely see more favoritism in the sale of the
staple.
Those who are close to barangay officials will get first
crack at every shipment, assuming the officials don’t steal the stocks and
divert them to commercial outlets. Those seen as supporting the "other side"
will not get any.
Earlier, we were wondering where the government got the
P4,500 monthly family income level that served as cut-off. That comes to P53,000
in yearly family income. The per capita poverty level is pegged at P17,000.
Multiplying by an average family size of five, that gives a family poverty
threshold of P85,000 (we’re using figures from the 2003 and 2006 family income
and expenditure surveys and extrapolating from them).
Clearly, the P53,500 yearly figure is not based on the
poverty threshold. The significant official figure it is closer to is the
P49,000 a year income of the bottom 30 percent of the families.
If the bottom 30 percent is indeed the target, we don’t have
any reason to quibble. So let’s do some pencil pushing. There are 17.4 million
families. One-third of that figure is 5.22 million. At three kilos per family,
that comes to 15.66 million kilos or 15,660 tons a day or 5.71 million tons a
year.
The programmed importation of the National Food Authority
this year is 2.2 million tons. This is short by 3.5 million tons. And at the
rate the NFA is running low in money because of heavy importation, it cannot buy
the 3.5 million-ton deficit from local farmers.
(Of course, farmer families eat part of what they harvest.
But the practice in the rural areas now is to sell all the produce at harvest
time and buy cheaper rice day to day. Farmers are economic maximizers in their
own way).
What’s the point of the whole exercise? It’s to show Gloria Arroyo’s promise
of cheap rice to the really needy is all hot air. The NFA does not have the
stocks. The government also does not have the money.
