The country's largest workers' group the Associated Labor Unions (ALU) has urged President Rodrigo Duterte to order a price freeze on basic commodities and go after profiteers due to increases in the prices of food and other staples.
ALU National Executive Vice President Gerard Seno said aside from extending price freeze and hunt down hoarders and price manipulators, the government should deploy more Diskwento Caravan and Kadiwa rolling stores to bring affordable basic food commodities to communities and work sites.
The workers group also sent a letter to the President seeking an immediate action by concerned government agencies to put in place effective price controls on basic commodities and to provide a wage subsidy for workers for their nutritional needs.
“The prices of basic commodities increased as unscrupulous traders and middlemen and socially irresponsible retailers take advantage of the situation,” he said.
He said millions of workers were left with no recourse but to rely on noodles, 3-in-1 coffee and other substitutes just to fill their stomachs.
“Millions of workers, since March 2020, were either on "No Work, No Pay" hold-over arrangements, or compelled to undertake job-sharing or job-rotation agreements, or to be placed on no compensation furlough as employers extended the suspension of their business operations. Millions, in the worse case, were laid off. Truly, worker incomes took a severe battering, and what little savings they had, is long gone,” Seno said.
He said the P537 daily wage can hardly purchase a kilo of pork, including vegetables to meet the nutrition needs of a family of five.
The workers group appealed to Duterte to extend proclamation 1081 issued in the wake of Typhoon Ulysses indefinitely to freeze prizes of basic commodities, for the government to go after and to prosecute price gouging middlemen, traders and retailers and to shut down hoarders.
Meanwhile, Senator Christopher Go urged the government Monday to immediately act on the rising prices of pork and other food commodities and boost the country’s food security amid the current pandemic.
Go has been prodding the government to prioritize three important aspects towards COVID-19 recovery: (1) address hunger; (2) acquire sufficient, safe and effective vaccines for all Filipinos with utmost priority to the poor and vulnerable sectors as well as frontliners; (3) and provide more economic opportunities through jobs and other forms of livelihood. .
To address the concern amid widely reported increase in prices of several meat products, Go has renewed his appeal for the Executive Department to issue an Executive Order to impose a ceiling on the prices of pork and chicken in the market.
The Department of Agriculture is one with Go in recommending price ceilings to prevent further price hikes in the country.
It seeks to prevent opportunistic businesses from illegally manipulating the prices of basic necessities and prime commodities, thus helping the Filipino consumers who are still affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, the DA also suggested utilizing its annual Buffer Fund under Republic Act 7581 to subsidize distribution costs of pork and chicken, effectively ensuring reasonable prices in the market.
Under RA 7581, the DA may use its Buffer Fund to purchase, import, or stockpile any basic necessity or prime commodity, devise ways and means of distributing them for sale at reasonable prices in areas where there is shortage of supply or a need to effect changes in its prevailing price.
Furthermore, the DA has proposed the tripling of the Minimum Access Volume on pork imports, augmenting local pork supply and, thus, keeping prices more stable.
For a more long-term approach to food security in the country, the DA has also recently launched "ONE DA: A Holistic Approach to Agriculture and Fisheries Transformation" which serves as “an integrated framework with 12 key strategies to accelerate the transformation towards a modern and industrialized Philippine agriculture through an inclusive approach.”
To address the issue of price increase induced by animal-borne diseases, such as African Swine Fever, Duterte has issued Executive Order 105 which created the National Task Force on Animal-Borne Diseases.
This seeks to undertake activities to prevent the entry of animal-borne diseases, control their spread and address other related issues.
Duterte also signed Executive Order 123 modifying the rates of import duty on certain agricultural products under section 1611 of Republic Act 10863, otherwise known as the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act.
The said EO, in effect, retained the reduced five percent tariff rates imposed on mechanically deboned meat of chicken and turkey, a key ingredient of low-priced meat products often consumed by ordinary Filipinos.
“This is most welcome and I support it. This will have a huge impact on keeping prices low by keeping the tariffs low and preventing any inflationary effect,” Go said previously.
A survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations in November 2020 revealed that an estimated four million families reported involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months prior to the study. The number, though, is lower than the previous data gathered by SWS in September of last year where some 7.6 million reported involuntary hunger due to the pandemic.