In Nueva Ecija, Capitalism Plays Farmers for Suckers—and the DA Applauds from the Sidelines

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — July 30, 2025

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is aghast—positively floored—that rice traders in Nueva Ecija dare to buy wet palay at a measly P5 per kilo. That’s a price so low it’d make a carabao sob into its rice straw. Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa, channeling his inner drama queen, decries this as “abusive” and “profiteering.” Philippine News Agency, July 19, 2025. Oh, the humanity! Cue the DA’s righteous press release, a weapon so fearsome it’ll surely send those cartel kingpins scurrying. Meanwhile, traders are likely popping champagne in their Makati penthouses, their luxury SUVs parked beside the misery of farmers who can’t afford a bowl of the rice they grow. This isn’t a market; it’s a massacre.

The DA’s Oscar-Worthy Meltdown: All Tears, No Teeth

The DA’s outrage is a performance for the ages, a masterclass in crocodile tears. They’re shocked that traders exploit farmers, as if this hasn’t been the plot since Magellan’s crew first haggled over rice. The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) has been screaming about cartels—naming culprits like the Nueva Ecija Rice Traders Association—for years NewsTV5, 2025. Yet, the DA’s scorecard for price-fixing convictions? A big, fat zero. President Marcos’ promise of P20 per kilo for wet palay PCO, 2023 is a fairy tale for farmers stuck selling to traders at a quarter of that price. The math is brutal: P20 pledged, P5 delivered. That’s not a deal; it’s daylight robbery. If Manhattan bankers were swindled like this, we’d call it a crime. For farmers? Just “business as usual.”

Traders’ Sob Story: The Market’s a Slot Machine, and They’re the House

Traders have their script down pat: “Oh, the market made us do it!” They’ll whine about harvest-season gluts, the cost of drying wet palay, and the Rice Tariffication Law’s (RTL) import pressures PSA Rice Market Analysis, 2024. Boo-hoo. Spare us the violins. The market they’re playing is a rigged slot machine, with cartels like those flagged by SINAG pulling the levers. Farmers, drowning in P12-15 per kilo production costs IRRI Cost Study, 2023 (PDF), have no choice but to sell at a loss to pay off loans for seeds, fertilizer, and fuel. Traders, meanwhile, flip that palay for markups that’d make a loan shark blush, leaving farmers to dine on kamote while they upgrade their Tagaytay villas.

This isn’t just about rice; it’s a full-blown hunger game where farmers bleed, traders feast, and the poor beg for crumbs. The RTL, sold as a consumer win, shaved rice prices from P40 to P34-36 per kilo PSA Consumer Price Index, 2025. Great, right? Except farmers’ incomes have tanked, with palay prices hitting lows of P7 in some regions ABS-CBN NEWS, 2025. The poor pay an invisible tax: traders’ profiteering keeps retail rice just pricey enough to break budgets, while the DA’s P20-per-kilo subsidized rice program—confined to a pathetic 101 sites Sunstar Davao, 2025—is about as useful as a paper umbrella in a typhoon. The kicker? The Philippines, now the world’s top rice importer at 3.2 million metric tons Inquirer, 2024, trades food security for trader profits. Food sovereignty? More like food servitude.

The Poor’s Starvation Surcharge: Welcome to the Hunger Games

House Bill No. 1: The DA’s Latest Magic Potion, Guaranteed to Flop

Behold House Bill No. 1, the Rice Industry and Consumer Empowerment Act, the DA’s shiny new toy to fix everything House Bill No. 1 Text, 2025. A minimum farmgate price! NFA market powers reborn! Direct sales to dodge traders! Sounds like a farmer’s dream, right? Wrong. It’s a legislative placebo, destined for the scrapheap of broken promises alongside the Agri-Agra Law and CARP. The DA hasn’t even set the floor price—because why bother with details when you can bask in vague promises? Congress will drag this bill through its usual molasses-paced dance, stalled by trader lobbying and political posturing. Even if it passes, enforcement will be as limp as the DA’s current anti-profiteering charade. The NFA’s procurement, puffed up at “149% of target” NFA Annual Report, 2024, is a drop in the ocean compared to the trader-dominated market. Compare that to the DA’s bloated budgets, funding air-conditioned offices for bureaucrats who’ve never seen a rice field. Barok’s Law of Failed Reforms holds: the grander the government’s fanfare, the louder the thud when it flops.

The Final Sting: Farmers as Roadkill on the Highway of Greed

Next harvest, the DA will dust off its “concern” script. Traders will tally their profits, maybe splurging on a yacht to match their SUVs. And the farmers? They’ll be bones bleaching in the fields, their hopes for a fair price as dead as Marcos’ P20-per-kilo vow. This isn’t a scandal; it’s a system engineered to crush the poor while the powerful gorge. Until the DA swaps press conferences for prosecutions and House Bill No. 1 becomes more than a politician’s photo-op, Nueva Ecija’s rice fields will remain a slaughterhouse—and farmers will keep getting carved up.