<\/p>\n
THE administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. announced plans for the pilot rollout of the P20-per-kilo rice initiative, which will begin in the Visayas, following a closed-door meeting with the President and 12 governors held at the Cebu Provincial Capitol on Wednesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., Visayas shall serve as a testbed for implementation strategies and logistical coordination.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n He added that the program is intended to be scaled up nationwide, with the goal of making affordable rice accessible to more Filipino families across the country.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe launched it here (Cebu) because mas marami ngang nangangailangan sa region na \u2018yun. But, of course, ang eventual intention nitong programang ito \u2014 once we sort out all the issues logistically and para makita talaga how to operate it and launch it and manage it \u2014 nationwide ito eventually,\u201d he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As part of the initial phase, the DA will provide up to 40 kilos of rice per household per month. The program is set to run until December, with the possibility of extension to February 2026 or even until 2028, Laurel said.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOur President has given the directive to the Department of Agriculture to formulate this to be sustainable and tuloy-tuloy hanggang 2028,\u201d the DA secretary said.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Laurel said selling cheaper rice to the public will decongest National Food Authority (NFA) warehouses, which are currently operating at full capacity due to the large volume of milled and unmilled rice stocks.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n He noted that the country\u2019s stockpile has grown from 300,000 metric tons to 358,000 metric tons due to harvest season.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSo, we really have to move out and dispose of. That\u2019s also the other factor,\u201d Laurel said. <\/strong>|<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. announced plans for the pilot rollout of the P20-per-kilo rice initiative, which will begin in the Visayas,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13323"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13326,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13323\/revisions\/13326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}