Manila – DOLE Assistant Secretary Joji V. Aragon met with Department of Agriculture Assistant Secretary Carlos L. Magnaye to discuss the Republic Act 11203 ("An Act Liberalizing the Importation, Exportation, and Trading of Rice, Lifting for the Purpose the Quantitative Import Restriction on Rice)  at the Institute for Labor Studies’ (ILS) iLearn Conference Room last 05 April 2019.

The Department of Labor and Employment is already preparing for the law's possible implications to employment in the agriculture sector, and is now in the process of mapping available social safety nets or minimum social protection mechanisms that the DOLE may offer to affected farmers and other agriculture workers.

Asec. Aragon was joined by ILS Acting Deputy Executive Director Patrick Patriwirawan, Jr. and ILS Labor and Employment Officers John Emmanuel B. Villanueva, Cesar A. Mansal, and Marc Raphael A. Penaredondo of the Institute's Employment Research Division.

President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law Republic Act No 11203 on February 14, an act that will lift import restrictions on rice, a measure which the government hopes will make the food staple more affordable for Filipinos.

The Institute for Labor Studies (ILS) is the policy research and advocacy arm of the Department of Labor and Employment. For more information on this story, please contact the Advocacy and Publications Division at 527-3490.