summer harvest, where the price of palay was as high as P23 to P24 in Central and Northern Luzon, was assurance enough till the major harvest in September/ October.

Now that India has banned rice exports other than the pricey basmati, and Thailand and Vietnam have increased their price to around $500 per ton, up from May’s $430 along with export volume limits, we could be in serious trouble.

If Egay and Falcon did not make landfall in Luzon, but brought much rain and flooded our food baskets in Regions 1, 2, 3 and the Cordilleras, think of the incalculable damage it wrought on the farms of China where Egay made landfall, and Falcon is on its way to making another.

China’s rice import requirements will certainly go up.

And who do you think the giant will go to for its rice needs?

Why, Indo-China, of course.

The cross-border trade between China and Vietnam will flourish immensely with both socialist governments looking the other way.

Last Monday, I wrote we could be looking at P50 per kilo come the “ber” months, double what Kadiwa prides as release price, which we collectively subsidize to the tune of a P13 loss per kilo.

Oil came in with its own hefty pump price increase, along with LPG. And even our energy spokesperson says the price is likely to go further upwards.

High oil prices plus high food prices are a deadly cocktail.

Take note: 50 percent of our price index is accounted for by food price movements, with rice as its principal component.

Oil prices impact on most every item in the basket, from transport to production costs.

Even if the government allows imports now, and as we write this article, the President is meeting his agriculture officials, the Viet and Thai sellers will demand much, much more.

Fifty pesos per kilo by the last quarter of this year may even be an under-estimate.

To the teeming poor, that would be a disaster.

As for those who can afford more than P50 per kilo, easy availability of desired varieties would become more difficult.

For the very rich, there’s always Calrose or the local Dona Maria, both priced at about P100 per kilo. The rich, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “are different from you and me.” Aside from having more money, they eat less rice.

PAG-ASA warns us that there should be 11 more typhoons before 2024 barrels in. Pray these do not hit us when harvest time comes.

Farmers of Northern Luzon, even the Mindoro provinces which bore the brunt of the floods brought by Egay and the habagat rainfall sucked by Falcon, are now hard put to re-plant their inundated palay fields.

Assuming DA supplies them with seeds and other inputs, they would be devastated if stronger typhoons hit in September when the palay is pregnant with grain, or October-November when they are about to harvest their delayed crop.

Huwag naman sana.

The good Lord gave us rain after a sweltering summer, with the capital region experiencing rations of tap water from Angat.

Pray He does not give us stronger typhoons as El Niño arrives.

By Josep Borrell Fontelles

ON JULY 17, nearly one year after it was signed in Istanbul, Russia decided to not renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) that allows Ukraine to export agricultural goods to global markets.

As underlined by the Secretary General of the UN, this initiative has been ‘a beacon of hope in a world that desperately needs it.’

Before Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, a critical global food supplier, a fifth of the world’s barley came from Ukraine, as well as a sixth of the maize and an eighth of wheat.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, attacking grain fields and silos and blocking Ukrainian ports, global food prices spiked to record levels and endangered much needed food supply for many importer countries.

The BSGI aimed to re-establish a vital route for agricultural exports from Ukraine and to lower global food prices.

Despite challenges, it achieved its key purpose.

Since August 2022, the export of almost 33 million tons of grains and food from Ukraine to 45 different countries played an instrumental role in reducing global food prices by some 25 percent since the record high reached shortly after Russia’s attack.

As public trade data shows, over half of the grain, including two thirds of the wheat, went to developing countries.

In addition, the BSGI ensured continued access to grain for the World Food Program.

In 2023, Ukraine supplied 80 percent of the wheat procured to support humanitarian

Typhoons spawned in the Pacific Ocean batter our shores at the rate of around 20 per year, causing floods, landslides and widespread destruction of agricultural crops, homes, and public infrastructures.

We are also located in the Pacific ‘ring of fire’ consisting of active volcanoes that may not violently erupt on a regular basis, but nonetheless cause destruction of homes and massive evacuation of people to safer places when they do.

There are also earthquakes that topple buildings and residences as well as damage infrastructure such as roads and bridges. And we’re not even talking of man-made disasters such as massive displacement of people from their homes due to armed conflict especially in the countryside.

Typhoon Egay left 25 dead and over 2 million people affected by strong winds and rains that destroyed homes and crops and flooded many low-lying communities across its path.

Moreover, the typhoon left at least 252

THE International Criminal Court investigations of the anti-drug war waged by the Duterte administration continues to bedevil the country. This is because, by the looks of it, the ICC is nearing the end of its investigations or may have already finished it and is about to make its findings public.

The expectation is the issuance of arrest warrants is imminent to former and current public officials who were directly involved in the anti-drug campaign. The DOJ has even advised the former President and Senator de la Rosa not to travel to any country that the ICC has strong influence as if it is a given that the two will be issued arrest warrants.

In times like this, sometimes the better thing to do is wait, prepare and avoid saying more than what is necessary.

Issuing warnings left and right is not helpful.

Announcing that ICC officials who will come here to conduct investigation will be charged with usurpation of authority after saying that no ICC official will be allowed into the country will also just make us look ridiculous.

Can you imagine the reaction of the international community if we will indeed arrest and charge these ICC officials that we allowed into the country?

Since the DOJ has stated it is still open to talks under certain conditions, the wise move is to continue talking or keep the communication lines open. Completely shutting the door will not end our worries and, furthermore, it may not the best course of action to take.

We also have to ask the question why we allowed this issue to reach a point wherein the ICC may now have to issue arrest warrants.

Could the government have prevented the problem from reaching this stage?

Were the steps taken the right ones?

Let us look at some of the bones of contention that have brought the issue to this point.

First is the issue of jurisdiction.

The government is always saying since the country has withdrawn from the Rome statute, the ICC no longer has any jurisdiction to investigate the country. This is true if the ICC is investigating operations in the most food insecure countries like Afghanistan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Without the Black Sea route, the WFP has to get its grain elsewhere at higher prices and with a longer lead-time at a time when the world is facing an unprecedented food crisis.

Russia’s decision was taken despite the UN Secretary General’s renewed proposals to work to address its concerns.

In order to shift blame, Russia claims its own agricultural exports were not sufficiently facilitated. This is not borne out by publicly available trade data, which shows that Russia’s agricultural exports are thriving.

Russia gained also important benefits from the Memorandum of Understanding with the UN on fertilizer exports, which had been brokered in parallel to the BSGI.

The UN has worked relentlessly to clarify regulatory frameworks and engage with the private sector to find dedicated solutions across banking and insurance sectors. These efforts have been conducted in close collaboration with the EU and its partners. Contrary to the lies spread by Russia, the EU has indeed ensured that our sanctions have no impact on global food security. There are no sanctions on Russian export of food and fertilizer to third countries and the EU has provided extensive guidance to economic operators, clarifying that these transfers to third countries are permitted.

We have also worked with the UN to allow related payments. Despite these well-known and verifiable

Initial infrastructure damage, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), could well go over P3.5 billion.

At least eight more tropical cyclones are likely to hit the country before the end of the year, based on projections of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), with the strongest typhoons expected to hit the country by September and October this year.

But not everything is doom and gloom amid our constant exposure to natural disasters.

Despite the expected weather disturbances, the agency explained that complaints filed after the country withdrew in 2019.

The ICC, however, is saying the investigation is over cases that happened before the country’s withdrawal and we are, therefore, still obligated to cooperate.

Even our own Supreme Court agreed with this in a decision promulgated in 2019.

This is something the government cannot explain nor deny.

The second is the government’s contention that we have a perfectly functioning judicial system and we should be left to deal with the problem.