Philippines’ love affair with rice grows costlier amid fuel crisis

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]Filipinos love their rice. From steamed rice, garlic rice, to sticky rice in banana leaves. There's even a chocolate rice porridge called champorado.

[00:00:12]The Filipino usually eat rice.

[00:00:15]They eat rice every day?

[00:00:16]>> Yeah, yeah. Three times a day. Every meal? Every meal? Yeah.

[00:00:21]Breakfast, dinner, lunch.

[00:00:24]According to government statistics, the average Filipino consumes about 190 kg of rice a year. So, when prices go up by a few pesos a kilo, they feel the immediate impact straight in their pockets.

[00:00:39]Here at Taboan Market in Cebu City Center, many types of rice are available, priced at 50 to 60 pesos a kilo.

[00:00:48]Some varieties have interesting names.

[00:00:51]Some are locally produced and some imported.

[00:00:54]Now, here's my Jaguar rice, priced at 50 pesos a kilo. That's under 1 US dollars.

[00:01:01]Now, this is imported and according to him, the locals prefer imported rice simply because they are cheaper.

[00:01:07]Traders say that prices have been fluctuating in recent days due to uncertain fuel supplies, pushing up logistics costs. My concern is price is high that the salary is low.

[00:01:22]The other people, the salary here in Cebu is low.

[00:01:26]Filipinos say that the cost of living has gone up by 30% since the crisis in the Middle East erupted in March. They lament what they see as a lack of government assistance. Some are also worried about job security. Our number one worry is, of course, our job will still be there be there for us to provide us with our salary, to provide our food.

[00:01:54]Her husband, who's a farmer, hopes that the government will provide some form of subsidy to cushion the impact of higher input costs. For me, I I can I can feel it. We can feel the help from government right now.

[00:02:07]Because I know that also aside from the increase of the fuel, other products also are rising like for example pesticides, the other Yeah, yeah, yeah, chemicals yeah.

[00:02:21]Has it gone up? Yeah, also, also. How much how many Like I said, 30%. Although the Philippines government has been actively building up its rice inventory since rice emergency was declared last year after severe weather damaged crops, the oil shock since March have triggered a logistical nightmare. This after pump prices doubled to over 140 pesos a liter last month. Because very important for us now is really the movement of at least the food uh all over the country.

[00:02:52]We are 7,600 islands, so the movement especially of food, medicines, and essentials are very important. So we cannot cause any delay for this.

[00:03:02]Leaders at the recent ASEAN summit in Cebu, the Philippines have proposed tapping the emergency rice reserve with China, Japan, and Korea coupled with a possible regional oil stock pile.

[00:03:13]Measures aimed at mitigating fallout so severe that even the province's tourism sector has been left reeling. We serve many agency of the Korean agency, Japanese and Chinese agency.

[00:03:25]All of them very low.

[00:03:27]How many percent of cancellations?

[00:03:29]71 70%. Why they don't want to come here?

[00:03:33]Because we we increase our rates, ma'am.

[00:03:36]Cherry says some staff have been forced to go on no pay leave while others who work on commission are finding it hard to put food on the table.

[00:03:45]Many like her whose livelihoods depends solely on tourism say they need more help fast as the crisis continues to exact a heavy toll on the lives of millions across the region. Melissa Go, CNA, Cebu, the Philippines.