Stable supply of prime commodities vowed

MANILA, Philippines - The national government is making sure that prices of all basic commodities – not just rice, garlic and ginger – are within reasonable levels apart from having stable supply.

“Surveillance is being carried out to discourage hoarding and other practices that could lead to artificial shortage,” Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said yesterday. “Government is exerting all effort to ensure stable supply of rice, garlic and ginger.”

Coloma said rolling stores have been deployed for this purpose.

The Department of Trade and Industry under Secretary Gregory Domingo is fully aware of the situation, Coloma said, and the DTI’s National Price Council “is closely monitoring price movements.”

“While presently there are no suggested retail prices for these commodities, the National Price Council may prescribe indicative prices, if needed,” Coloma said.

Surveillance operations are being done so as to discourage unscrupulous businessmen from taking advantage of the situation, by way of hoarding their stocks that would create an artificial shortage, allowing them to sell their goods at high prices.

“We must strictly enforce the laws and prosecute hoarders,” Coloma said.

At the same time, Malacañang believes the increase in the prices of basic commodities – which it said is merely temporary and is expected to stabilize within the next two months – will not reach a point of “social unrest.”

“That is not our assessment of the situation. Our assessment of the situation is that we need to address the supply situation most importantly because stable supply is the best deterrent to artificial shortages and unusual spike in prices,” Coloma said.

Coloma admitted Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala’s vow of self-sufficiency in rice was not reached, but pointed out the “level of attainment” was nevertheless high at more than 90 percent.

This was why both the Department of Agriculture and the National Food Authority (NFA) are reaching targets, he said.

An agricultural group, however, questioned why the rice imported by the NFA failed to curb the price increase in the staple.

Rosendo So, chairman of Samahang Industriya at Agrikultura (SINAG), an umbrella organization of 33 federations and organizations of various sectors of the agriculture industry in the Philippines, said rice prices should not soar as palay price stabilized between P22 to P23, which should translate to about P1,840 to P1,900 per cavan of rice.

“Therefore, the retail price must be between P36 to P38 only and if that increased, that must be investigated,” So said.

He added that in November, they had a meeting with Sen. Cynthia Villar, chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, and representatives from the DA and the NFA regarding the importation of rice to flood the market before harvest season to avoid artificial price spikes.

“That must be investigated why NFA failed to release those rice stocks which is almost 16 million cavans,” So said.  – Eva Visperas