Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

In a surprising move, in 2018 President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines opened his country’s rice imports to free trade. Liberalization overturned nearly five decades of protectionism. The conventional wisdom maintains that Duterte’s fear of inflationary pressure pushed him to enact the drastic policy change. Even so, this answer fails to address other pressing questions: Why did past inflationary episodes not convince Duterte’s predecessors to open the country’s rice imports? More interestingly, why have not the country’s regional rice deficit neighbors that also have experienced rising rice prices of late not follow Duterte’s lead? This paper explores several key factors that explain why the Philippines was the most likely case to pursue institutional change, more so than Indonesia and Malaysia. Such historical and contemporary factors include differing nationalist trajectories, legacies of Green Revolution performance, the role of civil society, the institutional power of executive authority, the influence of technocrats, the structure of electoral competition, and lastly, degrees of exogenous pressure.