Executive Order No. 62

Also known as: Executive Order No. 62, s. 2024 · EO 62 · EO No. 62 · Executive Order No. 62 (2024) · Modifying the Nomenclature and Rates of Import Duty on Various Products

Government

Definition

Executive Order No. 62 (s. 2024), titled “Modifying the Nomenclature and Rates of Import Duty on Various Products,” was signed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on June 20, 2024, with Executive Secretary Lucas P. Bersamin, and put in place the Philippines’ comprehensive most-favored-nation tariff schedule for 2024 through 2028. Its headline provision cut the tariff on imported rice from 35 percent to 15 percent — both the in-quota and out-quota rates — through 2028, with the rates to revert on January 1, 2029; it also maintained the reduced rates on pork (15 percent in-quota, 25 percent out-quota), corn (5 percent in-quota, 15 percent out-quota), and mechanically deboned chicken and turkey meat (5 percent), and adjusted or merged tariff lines on industrial goods, including electric-vehicle rates of zero to one percent under Executive Order No. 12 (s. 2023). (LawPhil — EO 62, PCO, Philstar)

The order rests on Section 13, Article XII of the Constitution, Section 1608 of Republic Act No. 10863 (the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act), and Section 7(a) of Republic Act No. 8178 as amended by the Rice Tariffication Law (RA 11203) — the statute this wiki’s Rice Tariffication Law entry documents. Its stated rationale is a “transparent and predictable tariff structure” for medium- to long-term business planning, aimed to “augment supply, manage prices, and temper inflationary pressure” and safeguard “the purchasing power of Filipinos” amid rice inflation that stood at 23 percent in May 2024. The rice rate is subject to review every four months from effectivity by the National Economic and Development Authority, whose findings go to the President through the Executive Secretary; the NEDA Board had endorsed the new schedule on June 3, 2024. (LawPhil — EO 62, PCO, Philstar)

Identities

Source	Identifier	URL
Wikipedia	N/A	N/A
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DBpedia	N/A	N/A
ProductOntology	N/A	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A	N/A
MeSH	N/A	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A	N/A
AGROVOC	rice (c_6599) — the commodity whose tariff the order governs; no EO 62-specific concept verified	http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_6599
Google Scholar	Executive Order No. 62 rice tariff 15 percent Philippines 2024 tariffication	https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22Executive+Order+No.+62%22+rice+tariff+Philippines
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Also Known As

Executive Order No. 62, s. 2024
EO 62
EO No. 62
Executive Order No. 62 (2024)
Modifying the Nomenclature and Rates of Import Duty on Various Products

Examples and Analogies

One switchboard for all tariffs: earlier orders adjusted commodities piecemeal; EO 62 works like a building’s master switchboard — the whole 2024-2028 MFN schedule rewritten in one annex, from rice and pork down to coal briquettes at zero duty and clinical-trial kits at 3 percent. (PCO)
A time-bound toll cut: the rice provision is a toll reduction with an expiry — the importer’s toll drops from 35 to 15 percent through 2028 and snaps back on January 1, 2029 unless extended, giving traders a dated window rather than an open-ended concession. (Philstar)
The four-month dial: the review clause makes the rice rate the tariff system’s adjustable dial — every four months NEDA must re-examine it against prices and farm conditions, institutionalizing motion between consumer prices and producer protection. (LawPhil — EO 62)
Verified statutory and record data:
Signing: June 20, 2024, Manila; NEDA Board endorsement June 3, 2024 (LawPhil — EO 62, PCO)
Rice: 35 percent reduced to 15 percent, in-quota and out-quota, through 2028; reversion January 1, 2029; review every four months by NEDA from effectivity (Philstar, LawPhil — EO 62)
Other products: pork 15/25 percent, corn 5/15 percent, poultry mechanically deboned meat 5 percent — rates maintained until 2028; salt duty to rise from 1 to 9 percent upon effectivity of RA 11985’s implementing rules (Philstar)
Industrial lines: zero duty on coal briquettes; 3 percent on solid sodium hydroxide, zinc peroxide, and clinical-trial kits; expanded zero-to-one-percent electric-vehicle coverage (PCO)
Effectivity: fifteen days after publication for the rice rates per RA 8178 as amended; thirty days for the rest (LawPhil — EO 62)
Challenge: petition for certiorari and prohibition filed with the Supreme Court on July 4, 2024 (Rappler)

Usage Scenarios

1. Importing Rice Under the Reduced Tariff

Private importers — the importing class the Rice Tariffication Law created in 2019 — enter rice at the 15 percent duty through 2028, the rate economic managers paired with a target of bringing rice to ₱29 per kilo for poor consumers, against late-May 2024 retail prices of ₱45–₱55 per kilo. (Philstar)

2. Holding the Wider Agricultural Schedule

For pork, corn, and poultry mechanically deboned meat, the order’s function is continuation rather than reduction — the 2021-vintage emergency rates are held at 15/25, 5/15, and 5 percent until 2028, giving feed and meat processors the same predictability rice importers received. (PCO, Philstar)

3. Running the Four-Month Rice Review

NEDA must review the rice tariff every four months from effectivity and submit findings and recommendations to the President through the Office of the Executive Secretary — the mechanism by which the rate can move before 2029 without a new executive order each time. (LawPhil — EO 62)

4. Testing the Order in Court

Farm groups used the order to test the constitutional limits of the tariff power: on July 4, 2024 the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura, the Federation of Free Farmers, the United Broiler Raisers Association, the Sorosoro Ibaba Development Cooperative, and a Magsasaka party-list representative petitioned the Supreme Court to nullify EO 62 and issue a temporary restraining order, naming President Marcos, Executive Secretary Bersamin, NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan, and the Tariff Commission as respondents. (Rappler)

Strategies

Tariff policy as anti-inflation tool: the order was deployed against 2024’s rice inflation — a supply-augmenting rate cut aimed at retail prices, with the Palace projecting the reduction could bring rice prices down — the consumer-price half of the Rice Tariffication Law’s bargain. (Philstar)
A dated schedule for predictability: by writing the rates to 2028 with automatic reversion on January 1, 2029, the order gave importers and farmers a multi-year horizon instead of annual extensions — the “transparent and predictable tariff structure” its whereas clauses invoke. (LawPhil — EO 62, PCO)
A built-in review valve: the four-month rice review institutionalizes recalibration between farm-gate prices and consumer prices, committing NEDA to revisit the rate on a fixed cycle rather than at political discretion. (LawPhil — EO 62)
Statutory anchoring: the order stands on the Flexible Clause of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act and the Rice Tariffication Law’s rate-setting provision — the very anchors petitioners argue were misused, making the statutory text the battlefield of the litigation. (LawPhil — EO 62, Rappler)

Security and Safety Measures

Food security as the declared object: the order frames affordable rice as a security matter — issued to temper inflationary pressure and safeguard the purchasing power of Filipinos, the same frame the Rice Tariffication Law declares as state policy. (LawPhil — EO 62, PCO)
Consultation duties in the tariff process: the litigation record documents the petitioners’ core procedural claim — that the public hearings required under the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act’s Flexible Clause never occurred — the standing safeguard debate over how tariff rates may lawfully be modified. (Rappler)
Fixed review as institutional discipline: the four-month NEDA review, with findings transmitted through the Executive Secretary, builds monitoring into the order itself rather than leaving consequences to be discovered in retail statistics. (LawPhil — EO 62)
For researchers — date the regime: the rice tariff has changed repeatedly (35 percent from 2019, 15 percent from 2024, reversion set for 2029); statements about “the” rice tariff should carry the date and the issuing order. (Philstar, LawPhil — EO 62)

Historical Context

EO 62 is the third recalibration of the rice tariff created by the Rice Tariffication Law of 2019, which set a 35 percent ASEAN rate in place of the old quantitative restriction. Executive Order No. 135 (May 15, 2021) brought the most-favored-nation rates to 35 percent; by 2024, with rice inflation at 23.9 percent in April and 23 percent in May and well-milled rice retailing at ₱48–₱55 per kilo, economic managers pressed for a deeper cut. The NEDA Board endorsed the new 2024-2028 schedule on June 3, 2024, and President Marcos signed EO 62 on June 20, 2024, formalizing the reduction of the rice tariff to 15 percent through 2028 alongside the maintained pork, corn, and poultry rates. (Philstar, PCO)

The order’s politics arrived with its signature. Senator Imee Marcos said only rice exporters would benefit; the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura called the cut a “complete reversal” of food self-sufficiency goals and a “catastrophe” for farmers; former Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor projected farm-gate losses and announced plans to seek a Supreme Court halt. On July 4, 2024 those plans became a petition — SINAG, the Federation of Free Farmers, and allied groups asking the Court to declare the order unconstitutional for skipping the Flexible Clause’s required public hearings, with counsel arguing the violation “renders it unconstitutional.” The order remains the operative tariff schedule as of this entry’s October 2026 verification, with the four-month review cycle the documented mechanism for its recalibration and the constitutional challenge a matter of court record. (Philstar, Rappler)

Challenges and Controversies

Farmer-Group Opposition

The documented opposition ran from the Senate to the farm gates: Senator Marcos’s exporter-benefit claim, SINAG’s “catastrophe” judgment, Montemayor’s projected multi-billion-peso farm losses and ₱28-billion revenue-loss estimate, and reports of palay falling to ₱17–₱18 per kilo in parts of Central Luzon — the producer-side case against the cut, answered by economic managers with the consumer-price case for it. (Philstar)

The Constitutional Challenge

The July 4, 2024 petition — G.R. No. 274226, captioned for SINAG, the Federation of Free Farmers, and allied petitioners against President Marcos, Executive Secretary Bersamin, Secretary Balisacan, and the Tariff Commission — rests on the claim that the order bypassed the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act’s public-hearing requirements; its outcome belongs to the Court, and this entry records the register as documented. (Rappler)

Did Retail Prices Fall?

The order’s consumer promise is the contested half of its record, exactly as for the Rice Tariffication Law itself: the ₱29-per-kilo aspiration confronted ₱45–₱55 retail prices at signing, and how much of the tariff cut reached shelves rather than trading margins remained the open assessment question of the order’s first years. (Philstar)