Gloria Arroyo is facing a mounting political crisis with the threat of riots and military unrest over feared rice shortages.
The Philippines President is also under pressure to break with Catholic Church teaching against birth control amid a fresh population explosion.
New figures show the poor archipelago nation's population swelled to 88.6 million last year, or an annual increase of almost two million.
Despite a slowing of growth, 12million people have been added to the population since 2000, and the total is forecast to hit 100 million in five years.
As the world's largest rice importer, and with more mouths to feed, The Philippines has been hardest hit by soaring global prices of the commodity.
Prices offered to the Philippines National Food Authority have almost tripled since the new year -- from $US430 ($460) a tonne to more than $US1200 -- because international demand is outpacing rice production, and rice exporters such as India are restricting sales.
The Philippines' rice problem worsened sharply last week when the Arroyo administration was forced to keep importing the staple and subsidising poor consumers at a loss forecast at 50billion pesos ($1.3 billion).
On Friday, an official government tender for 500,000 tonnes of imported rice fell short, with traders offering only 325,750 tonnes because they had no more rice to offer.
Already Ms Arroyo has ordered the army to guard government rice warehouses.
"Hoarding" rice traders are being prosecuted in a crackdown critics describe as cynically fuelling anti-Chinese sentiment.
The rice panic, which caused millions of poor residents of Manila and country towns to queue this week for supplies, is being linked directly to overpopulation.
A former health minister, Alberto Romualdez, warned on the weekend that the population could reach 100 million in five years if the President kept requiring that the state follow Catholic Church teaching against artificial birth control.
"As far as a sensible, rational family planning program is concerned, I've given up on this Government," Mr Romualdez said in Manila.
"It can't afford to antagonise even the most minor element in the church. It's so insecure." He said the poorest families were having six or seven children.
One third of the population lives on less than one US dollar a day, up significantly from 2003, in contrast to the Asian region where extreme poverty is falling.
The Philippines has the highest birth rate in Southeast Asia and annual population growth of more than 2 per cent, double the regional average.
However, Ms Arroyo's Environment Minister, Lito Atienza, said activists should "stop blaming babies" for the Philippines' problems.
Ms Arroyo will be weakened if she abandons official support for natural family planning methods because she relies on the powerful Catholic Church along with the military to keep her in power.
This week the President was forced to promise subsidised rice for the entire armed forces and their families in order to stave off mutinies and coup attempts by hungry soldiers.
Malacanang Palace has been forced to deny suggestions the President is subsidising rice at a huge loss because her "job is on the line", as an International Grains Council economist said.
Government calls for rice rationing, which led to McDonald's serving "half-rice" portions, are becoming shriller.
Yesterday the administration was urging people to eat brown rice, which is quicker to produce.
Rice-loving Filippinos are also being encouraged to buy newly subsidised "pandesal", or salted bread, now on sale in the poorest slums. A sharp hike in the subsidy for rice growers to buy seeds has also been promised.
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