The Department of Agriculture will recommend the lifting of the price ceiling to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as a decrease in the prices of rice in the market was observed as supplies are expected to increase.

"The DA and the DTI, as well as the sectoral council met so that we can recommend and the President will be the one who will be deciding on it," Bureau of Plant Industry Director Gerald Glenn Panganiban said referring to the possible lifting of Executive Order No. 39 that imposed the price ceiling for well milled and regular rice.

Panganiban said based on monitoring of market prices the retailers are "80 to 90 percent compliant" with the price cap of P41 for the regular rice and P45 for the well-milled rice.

"The compliance has increased and then we have seen or we have received the reports from our regional offices, our PhilRice Institute about our bumper harvest coming. So we expect stable supply and hopefully we could decide on the price cap," he said.

He noted that the possible lifting of the price cap will depend on the decision of the president.

Panganiban said during the sectoral meeting on Tuesday morning that was led by the president, the DA presented the status of the government's compliance to the EO no. 39.

"We presented the status of our compliance to the EO39 and the indicators point that there are decreasing prices observed in market from our implementation starting last month until today; and then we are expecting an increased supply of our local harvest coming this last quarter ? for October, November and then the rest of the year," he said.

"The favorable factors externally have been reported, a drop in the export prices of rice in the global market has also been reported," he added.

Panganiban said for October, the government is expecting almost 1.9 million metric tons of rice for this month.

"That will jump our days to last or our supply of rice to 74 days. It increased from 50 last?or 52 last September. So because we are expecting more bumper harvest for the coming October and November, the public can expect that we will have a staple supply of farming staple," he said. Robina Asido/DMS