A DAVAO City councilor is pushing for the government to provide temporary subsidies for traders and farmers due to the rising costs of meat, pork products, vegetables and other basic goods.
Councilor Pamela Librado-Morata said in her privilege speech on Tuesday, February 2, 2021, that pork sold in markets over the past few weeks is currently more than P300 per kilo and chicken is almost P200 a kilo, this coupled with increased prices of vegetables and other commodities.
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Librado-Morata said "this new situation has forced several families to budget tighter to put food on the table."
In a dialogue with the president and other officers of Bankerohan meat and vegetable vendors associations last January 28, she said they are complaining of higher prices from their suppliers of farm produce.
"According to our vendors, not only are they faced with higher prices from their suppliers of farm produce, but their stalls are also required to operate on a shorter period due to ongoing restrictions," Librado-Morata said.
She added that few who remain at work cannot make a significant profit due to the shortened time and the rising prices, especially of pork.
"Clearly, this situation has affected both consumers and vendors alike," Librado-Morata said.
The recent shift to online platforms to buy goods, she said, has taken its toll on local market vendors.
With this, she urged the national and local governments to provide temporary subsidies to market vendors, adding that the government can buy the produce of farmers, then sell them to consumers at a subsidized rate -- similar to what was done during the early stages of the lockdown last year.
She said a similar mechanism can also be implemented to mitigate the situation, where a Quick Response Fund of P6.37 billion may likewise be tapped to help farmers and consumers.
"Such a response would help both producers and consumers more effectively," the councilor said.
President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, February 1, signed Executive Order 124, imposing a 60-day price ceiling on chicken and pork prices in Metro Manila not higher than P270 per kilo for the price of kasim /pigue, and P300 per kilo for liempo, and P160 per kilo for dressed chicken.
This is in a response to the rising pork and chicken products.
Librado-Morata is cautioning against price freeze to mitigate or control the effects of rising prices, as this would adversely affect local farmers and groups who are still reeling from the economic impact of the pandemic, the African Swine fever (ASF), and the bird flu.
"To truly overcome the negative impact of inflation, the string of successive typhoons, and the pandemic -- all of which have vastly affected agricultural production -- a genuine land reform program and an increase in government support for agriculture can ensure food security," she said.
In a recent SunStar Davao report, Hog Farmers Association of Davao Inc. (Hogfadi) president Eduardo So said that some hog raisers, particularly from the backyard sector, can no longer meet the demand of supplying pork products after their hogs were infected with ASF.
So said hog raisers are at a loss as there is still no cure yet for ASF.
The culling of thousands of ASF-infected hogs, he said, had caused raisers to lose their livelihood.
So said in Mindanao, the island's pork supply is already down by around 30 to 40 percent because of the ASF outbreak. Davao Region, which is exporting pork products to Luzon, is also affected.
Librado-Morata said there is a need for the government to provide sufficient subsidies to farmers and traders not only in the region, but the entire Mindanao.
In response, the councilor will be filing resolutions calling on the Department of Trade and Industry to investigate and regulate the prices of pork and other meat products and to update the public of such development aside from calling for more subsidies for the farmers and small entrepreneurs/traders.