Palace hopes inflation won’t spike after Supertyphoon Ompong

Malacañang said Tuesday it is hoping that the damage sustained by the agriculture sector from Typhoon Ompong will not stoke inflation pressures.

Inflation reached a nine-year high of 6.4 percent in August 2018.

Farm losses from Ompong (international name: Mangkhut), which tore through Northern Luzon over the weekend, has reached P14.339 billion representing damaged crops, livestock, and infrastructure.

“We can’t deny that P14 billion was a very high cost to agriculture. However, we now have policy shift. We have allowed the entry of imports of food products which we hope will bring down the cost of goods,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said at a news conference.

“We’re hoping that inflation will not worsen because of institutional steps already taken by the government to help rein in inflation.”

The Palace said last week that the Cabinet economic cluster wanted President Rodrigo Duterte to sign an executive order removing administrative constraints and non-tariff barriers in imported rice, fish, vegetables, sugar, and meat.

Fish and seafood, rice and meat, and vegetables accounted for 2.4 percentage points of the 6.4 percent inflation rate in August, according to the National Economic and Development Authority.

“The issuance of the executive order as well as quick implementation of immediate and short-term measures will address the supply issues that have been driving up inflation,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said in a statement on Thursday, September 13.

The economic team also crafted short-term measures to temper inflation, including making rice available in the market by immediately releasing stocks from National Food Authority warehouses, as well as importation and harvest distribution.

Rice transfers from ports to warehouses and retail outlets, and the speedy passage of the rice tariffication bill in Congress are part of the anti-inflationary measures.

Medium to long-term measures include facilitating access to better farming technologies, promoting research and development, developing resilient and high yielding rice varieties, reassessing the country’s planting season, amending the Fisheries Code of the Philippines, and the tariffication of sugar, meat, fish and vegetables. —VDS, GMA News