The government wants to give rice allowance to government workers so that their purchasing power will not be mostly for food.

''People are living very close to the subsistence level. And we have to pull ourselves out of that. They should not be at the subsistence level. They should not be spending 60, 70, 80 percent of their income on food. That’s far, far, far too much. They have nothing left for anything else,'' said President Ferdinand Marcos in a TV interview with host Toni Gonzaga Tuesday.

''They cannot send their children to school. They cannot pay for the electricity, the water. All of these things that they need to pay for. So that’s really the scope of the problem. And that’s the way I see it,'' he added.

The interview was aired over AllTV's Channel 2, which began broadcasting. Former Senator Manuel Villar is behind AllTV.

Marcos said the government will be buying rice for distribution to workers.

"It will cheaper than the market price. Now, we don't want the the rice producers to be out of business. On the contrary, what is going to happen is there will be a higher demand because the government will be buying more (rice)," Marcos explained. DMS