NEGROS Occidental Third District Representative Alfredo Benitez is pushing rice importation to lower down the price in the province.

Benitez made the suggestion after Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos said in a press conference Saturday, October 27, that President Rodrigo Duterte has relaxed the restriction on the importation of rice, which means that anybody can import rice for so long as they pay the tariff.

"Maybe we can convince the governor to initiate rice importation in the province. It will bring rice directly to Negros which will probably bring down prices up to P27 to P30 per kilo. You could officially ask the governor if he is willing to undertake that importation," Benitez said.

In response, Marcos said that Benitez's move is good and that in Ilocos, she is also inclined to doing rice importation.

She said they tried hard for the National Food Authority (NFA) to supply rice in Ilocos after they run out of stock after the devastation of Super Typhoon Ompong.

Meanwhile, Marcos is pushing for a one-year suspension of value added tax (VAT) on basic food commodities, fuel, and electricity to address the skyrocketing inflation in the country.

“The temporary lifting of the VAT on basic commodities will provide urgent much-needed relief to Filipinos as inflation hit the hardest in the countryside,” Marcos said.

She said that the government has already agreed to suspend the excise tax on fuels but it would take effect on February or March in 2019.

“Filipinos cannot wait for global oil prices to go down. Prices are already too high for Filipinos living below the poverty line. Removing the VAT would lighten the burden on millions of Filipino households,” she added.

Marcos said that the whole 12 percent may not be necessarily suspended but maybe three or four percent would do a lot.