QC government monitors prices

The Quezon City government has reactivated the city’s Local Price Coordinating Council to make sure that prices of commodities, particularly prime necessities, are sold at levels pegged by law.

Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. issued Executive Order No. 6, citing the need to reorganize the council not only in the effort of keeping commodities at reasonable prices, particularly basic necessities, but also in finding ways to stabilize prices.

Belmonte chairs the council, with the Department of Trade and Industry’s National Capital Region director Gracia Soller as vice chairman, and Niel Lina, chief of the QC market development and administration office, as executive director.

Other related national and local agencies, the Department of Health, National Meat Inspection Service and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources are represented in the council.

Each agency in the council provides input on how much prices should be pegged.

In a recent meeting of the council, Lina reported that the MDAD’s programs on all markets in the cities include a weekly monitoring of prices, enforcement of regulations requiring price tags on merchandise, setting up a consumers welfare desk, and inspecting defective weighing scales.

Belmonte has also mobilized a price coordinating council enforcement team to monitor prices in establishments as he vowed to protect consumers and to impose the full force of the law on profiteers.