DAVAO CITY (August 30)– Malacanang has announced that measures proposed by several economic managers to cushion the impact of inflation in the country would be put in place.
In a press briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. said that “lowering tariff would not solve the spiking prices of goods.” Instead, economic managers are proposing the importation of galunggong; temporary suspension of Special Safeguards Measures (SSM) on chicken meat imports and closely monitoring the importation of minimum access volume (MAV) quota for pork.
The measure was a result of the public hearing and dialogue with heads and / or representatives of different government agencies, including the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), and the Tariff Commission.
The proposal also includes the conduct of regular inspection of commodity importers’ warehouses to determine level of inventory with respect to vegetable products like garlic and onion; and close monitoring of the arrival and distribution of NFA rice importations.
Roque also explained that the special safeguards measure is levied to imported goods from countries who give subsidy to their farmers. “Tinanggal po natin ‘yan. Ang resulta niyan bababa po ang taripa na babayaran kung magkakalap po o magiimport ng poultry products,” he said.
The price of onions will also be lowered in the next two weeks after the DA arrived at an agreement with red and white onion traders last week that red onions will be sold at P55 per kilo in retail stores while white onions will be sold at P65 in two weeks’ time. Jiann Padillo/ NewsLine
