EDITORIAL - Unfair practices

A former director of the Bureau of Plant Industry and two of his subordinates are among 119 people, most of them importers, who are being investigated for graft by the Office of the Ombudsman on charges that they manipulated garlic supply, causing a price spike in June last year.

Prices of imported garlic – the cheaper and less redolent but larger variety mainly from Taiwan – have since gone down, so the public welcomes the ongoing investigation that may have caused the price reduction.

Garlic price had surged to a high of P287 per kilo last year – more than double the usual price. The 119 are accused of conniving to allow one group to corner garlic imports, allowing them to manipulate supply and prices. Similar cartel-type operations are suspected in onions, ginger and the national staple, rice.

The cheaper imported variety accounts for 73 percent of the country’s garlic supply, with only 27 percent locally sourced. Local production can be increased, but will the supply and pricing also be controlled by a cartel? Despite the scandal, prices of the smaller but more pungent local variety, grown mostly in the Ilocos Region, remain high. So do prices of local ginger and red onions – two other basic ingredients in the Filipino household. Rice prices have not returned to the levels before a similar scandal over a rice cartel erupted. Controlling the supply of these items to push up prices hits the poor hardest.

Officials of the Department of Justice have said that the group behind the garlic price manipulation was also responsible for pushing up the prices of onions. This should be substantiated and the investigation speeded up so that appropriate penalties can be imposed soon. If the accusations are true, only the certainty that punishment awaits those who engage in unfair business practices will stop these activities.