Republic Act No. 3452

Also known as: RA 3452 · An Act to Adopt a Program to Stabilize the Price of Palay, Rice and Corn, to Provide Incentives for Production, and to Create a Rice and Corn Administration to Implement the Same, and to Provide Funds Therefor — the long title · The rice and corn price-stabilization act of 1962 — the descriptive styling · The creating statute of the Rice and Corn Administration — the lineage styling · The RCA's charter — the agency-side shorthand

Government

Definition

Republic Act No. 3452 — long title “An Act to Adopt a Program to Stabilize the Price of Palay, Rice and Corn, to Provide Incentives for Production, and to Create a Rice and Corn Administration to Implement the Same, and to Provide Funds Therefor,” approved June 14, 1962 — is the statute by which the postwar Philippine Republic built its staple-grains price-stabilization machinery. Its Section 1 declared the program: the government would buy palay, rice, and corn directly from tenants, farmers, growers, producers, and landowners at a price that will afford them “a fair and just return for their labor and capital investment,” and sell the grain back to consumers inside a controlled band. Its Section 2 created the implementing agency in a sentence: “There is hereby created the Rice and Corn Administration under the Office of the President of the Philippines,” with regional offices in Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. (LawPhil — RA 3452) The agency itself — the RCA — is documented in this wiki’s entry on the Rice and Corn Administration; this entry treats the statute: what it created, what powers it conferred, what it abolished, and how it died.

The Act armed its Administration with the full toolkit of administered grain prices: support buying of ordinary palay at not less than ₱11.50 nor more than ₱12.50 per 45-kilo cavan and corn at not less than ₱9.00 per 56-kilo cavan, with farmers delivering one hundred cavans or less served first (Sec. 8); retail sales of ordinary rice “at not less than eighty centavos nor more than one peso per ganta” and corn grits at ₱0.40–₱0.45 per ganta (Sec. 9); buffer stocks in bonded warehouses constituting “part of the national reserve to be released only during natural calamities, emergencies or critical periods of price increases” (Sec. 3); a flat ban under which the Administration “is hereby prohibited from importing rice and corn,” importation being left “to private parties or entities upon payment of the corresponding taxes” (Sec. 10); inspection of privately stored grain (Sec. 11); a presidentially declared rice and corn emergency in which the Administration could conduct “raids, seizures and/or confiscation” of hoarded stock (Sec. 12); and penalties of fine up to ₱10,000 and imprisonment up to five years, with perpetual disqualification from public office for a convicted official (Sec. 15). Section 13 abolished the National Rice and Corn Corporation (NARIC) and transferred its assets, liabilities, functions, and personnel to the new Administration; Section 14 appropriated ₱100 million, capping annual administrative and operating expenses at ₱3 million; Section 17 made the Act effective upon approval. (LawPhil — RA 3452) The statute ran for a decade before martial law consumed it: Presidential Decree No. 4 of September 26, 1972 — issued “[p]ursuant to Proclamation No. 1081, dated September 21, 1972” — provided that the RCA “is hereby considered abolished three months from the date of approval of this Act to allow the RCA to wind up its operations,” transferring its properties, assets, records, unexpended appropriations, and imported stocks to the National Grains Industry Development Administration, while Section 27 of the same decree moved the Rice and Corn Board of RA 3018 into the new Authority — the lineage that became the National Food Authority. (Supreme Court E-Library — PD 4, Wikipedia — National Food Authority)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	N/A — no standalone article for the Act (title verified missing this session); the statute’s agency is treated within the National Food Authority (Philippines) article
Wikidata	N/A — entity searches for “Republic Act No. 3452” and “Rice and Corn Administration” return no item (verified this session)
DBpedia	N/A — the data endpoint returns an empty resource for the Act; only the automated wikilink stub Rice_and_Corn_Administration of the NFA article exists (verified this session)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A — no heading for the Act; the Library of Congress catalog carries the agency’s own publications under the corporate name “Philippines. Rice and Corn Administration” (search verified this session)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	rice (c_6599) — the staple the Act regulated; no Act-specific concept verified
Google Scholar	Republic Act No. 3452 Rice and Corn Administration 1962 price stabilization palay support price buffer stock ganta retail ceiling NARIC abolition import prohibition Rice and Corn Board PD 4 1972 National Grains Authority
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

RA 3452
An Act to Adopt a Program to Stabilize the Price of Palay, Rice and Corn, to Provide Incentives for Production, and to Create a Rice and Corn Administration to Implement the Same, and to Provide Funds Therefor — the long title
The rice and corn price-stabilization act of 1962 — the descriptive styling
The creating statute of the Rice and Corn Administration — the lineage styling
The RCA’s charter — the agency-side shorthand

Examples and Analogies

A statute that is a price corridor: RA 3452’s whole design is a corridor with published ends — buy palay at ₱11.50–₱12.50 the cavan so the farmer keeps a “fair and just return,” sell rice at ₱0.80–₱1.00 the ganta so the consumer eats at a floor price — the Administration existing to hold both ends open at once. (LawPhil — RA 3452)
A statute that abolishes as it creates: Section 13 did not leave the new Administration an empty desk — the National Rice and Corn Corporation, the procurement corporation of the reconstruction era, “is hereby abolished,” and its assets, liabilities, functions, and personnel moved whole into the RCA, one legal person dissolved forward into another. (LawPhil — RA 3452)
One trade, two statutes: the Act is routinely confused with Republic Act No. 3018 of 1960, whose Section 5 created the Rice and Corn Board — the nationalization regulator closing the industry to non-citizens. RA 3452 built the price agency; RA 3018 built the licensing board; PD 4 merged both into one Authority in 1972. (LawPhil — RA 3018, Supreme Court E-Library — PD 4)
Verified statutory data:
Approval: June 14, 1962; effective upon approval (Sec. 17) (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Creation: Sec. 2 — Rice and Corn Administration under the Office of the President, with regional offices in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Buffer stocks: Sec. 3 — national reserve in bonded warehouses, releasable in natural calamities, emergencies, or critical price increases (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Support prices: Sec. 8 — palay ₱11.50–₱12.50 per 45-kilo cavan; corn not less than ₱9.00 per 56-kilo cavan; priority to farmers of 100 cavans or less, larger producers limited to twenty-five percent of the excess; price changes announced two months before planting (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Retail band: Sec. 9 — ordinary rice ₱0.80–₱1.00 per ganta; corn grits ₱0.40–₱0.45 per ganta (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Import ban: Sec. 10 — the Administration prohibited from importing rice and corn; importation by private parties upon payment of taxes (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Emergency powers: Sec. 12 — presidentially declared rice and corn emergency; raids, seizures, confiscation of hoarded stock at the prevailing consumer price (LawPhil — RA 3452)
NARIC abolition: Sec. 13 — corporation abolished; assets, liabilities, functions, personnel transferred (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Funding: Sec. 14 — ₱100 million appropriated; operating expenses capped at ₱3 million yearly (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Abolition: PD No. 4 (September 26, 1972), Sec. 26 — RCA “considered abolished three months from the date of approval of this Act” (Supreme Court E-Library — PD 4)

Usage Scenarios

1. Citing the RCA’s Statutory Basis

Any claim about what the Rice and Corn Administration legally was — its placement under the Office of the President, its price bands, its buffer-stock mandate — resolves to this Act, cited by section; the agency’s operational decade is documented in this wiki’s Rice and Corn Administration entry against the same statute. (LawPhil — RA 3452)

2. Studying Administered-Price Design in Philippine Grains Policy

RA 3452 is the textbook Philippine specimen of the administered price corridor: published floors and ceilings, small-producer priority, stock release rules, and an anti-hoarding emergency clause — the template PD 4 re-armed with licensing power in 1972 and the National Food Authority carried to the Rice Tariffication era. (LawPhil — RA 3452, Supreme Court E-Library — PD 4, Wikipedia — National Food Authority)

3. Tracing NARIC’s Abolition and the NFA Lineage

The Act is the hinge of the grains-agency genealogy this wiki records: NARIC abolished into the RCA (1962), the RCA abolished into the National Grains Authority (1972), the Authority renamed National Food Authority by PD 1770 on January 14, 1981 — one stock and staff walking forward under three names. (LawPhil — RA 3452, Wikipedia — National Food Authority)

4. Distinguishing the Act from RA 3018

Researchers handling the 1960s rice machinery must keep two statutes apart: RA 3018 (August 2, 1960), which nationalized the rice and corn industry to citizens and created the Board to police it, and RA 3452 (June 14, 1962), which created the price-stabilization Administration — two years and two missions apart, merged only by PD 4. (LawPhil — RA 3018, Supreme Court E-Library — PD 4)

Strategies

Aim the support price at the smallest seller: the Sec. 8 priority rule — farmers of one hundred cavans or less served first, large growers limited to a quarter of their excess — points the corridor’s farm end at subsistence and small commercial producers rather than the biggest sellers. (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Stabilize domestically, not at the border: by banning government importation outright and leaving imports to taxed private parties, the Act chose domestic procurement and buffer release over state trading — a design the import-short 1970s would bend. (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Regionalize the machinery: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao offices put procurement and distribution near the harvests instead of concentrating both in Manila. (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Cap the overhead: the ₱3 million yearly operating ceiling against the ₱100 million capital was the Act’s own economizing device — the stabilization fund was for grain, not bureaucracy. (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Dissolve forward, never liquidate: both of the Act’s successions — NARIC into the RCA, the RCA into the National Grains Authority — transferred estates, records, and personnel whole, the institutional grammar PD 4 reused when it ended this statute’s agency. (LawPhil — RA 3452, Supreme Court E-Library — PD 4)

Security and Safety Measures

Food supply as statutory purpose: the buffer stock’s release triggers — natural calamities, emergencies, critical price increases — made the Act an instrument of disaster response as much as farm policy, the ancestor of the buffer mandate the National Food Authority still holds. (LawPhil — RA 3452, Wikipedia — National Food Authority)
Inspection and anti-hoarding powers: Section 11 reached into private warehouses to record stocks, and Section 12 armed a declared emergency with raids, seizures, and confiscation of hoarded grain, compensated at the Administration’s prevailing consumer price. (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Penalties with teeth: conviction carried up to ₱10,000 in fines and five years’ imprisonment, and a guilty public official additionally suffered perpetual disqualification from public office. (LawPhil — RA 3452)
Personnel safeguards at abolition: PD 4’s wind-up screened RCA personnel through a five-member Selection Board and paid the unabsorbed a gratuity of one month’s salary per year of service, capped at twenty-four months — the decree’s cushion for consuming a statutory agency. (Supreme Court E-Library — PD 4)
For researchers: cite the statute for the agency’s powers and the decree for its abolition, and check every secondary date against the LawPhil and E-Library texts — the corpus of popular accounts routinely swaps the Act of 1962 and the Board’s statute of 1960. (LawPhil — RA 3452, LawPhil — RA 3018)

Historical Context

RA 3452 answered the postwar Republic’s chronic rice problem. The reconstruction-era procurement corporation NARIC had been buying and distributing grain since 1936; the Filipino-first legislation of 1960 (RA 3018) had nationalized the trade under the Rice and Corn Board; and in June 1962 Congress added the missing half — a price-stabilization administration under the Office of the President, funded at ₱100 million, empowered to hold a national buffer, and constructed by absorbing NARIC whole. (LawPhil — RA 3452, LawPhil — RA 3018)

The statute’s decade was the rice-short 1960s, and its end came in martial law’s first week. PD 4 — dated September 26, 1972, pursuant to Proclamation No. 1081 of September 21 — created the National Grains Industry Development Administration under the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, declared the RCA “considered abolished three months from the date of approval of this Act,” transferred the Rice and Corn Board’s functions under Section 27, and wound up an agency that by then sat on imported rice and corn stocks the original Act had forbidden it to import. The successor Authority was renamed National Grains Authority and, by Presidential Decree No. 1770 of January 14, 1981, transformed into the National Food Authority — the lineage this wiki’s entries on the Administration and the Authority carry forward. (Supreme Court E-Library — PD 4, Wikipedia — National Food Authority)

Challenges and Controversies

Two Statutes, Two Agencies, One Trade

Popular accounts credit RA 3452 with creating the Rice and Corn Board, or credit RA 3018 with price stabilization; both are wrong. The Board is RA 3018’s Section 5 creature (1960), the Administration is RA 3452’s (1962), and every date in the grains-agency lineage corrupts when the two are conflated — the correction this wiki’s Rice and Corn Board entry keeps consistently. (LawPhil — RA 3452, LawPhil — RA 3018)

The Statutory Ban and the Imported Stock

Section 10 prohibited the Administration from importing rice and corn in terms that left no exception; yet the decree abolishing the agency in 1972 wound up an RCA holding imported rice and corn stocks, ashore and afloat. How the prohibition yielded — amendment, emergency arrangement, or another agency importing in the RCA’s name — is not documented in the sources verified for this entry, and the gap marks the limit of the statute-only record. (LawPhil — RA 3452, Supreme Court E-Library — PD 4)

Abolished by Decree, Not by Law

The Act was passed by Congress and its agency was extinguished by a presidential decree issued under Proclamation 1081 — a form of termination the statute never contemplated and no court tested; the reorganization simply took. (Supreme Court E-Library — PD 4)

Fixed Prices Against a Moving Market

The Act’s published figures — ₱11.50–₱12.50 the cavan at the farm gate, ₱0.80–₱1.00 the ganta at retail — were pesos fixed in 1962 for a corridor the market kept moving; the design assumed the state could hold both ends indefinitely, the standing difficulty of every administered price in the Philippine grains economy since. (LawPhil — RA 3452)