Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda said the country urgently needs inflation countermeasures to keep prices down and provide the necessary safety nets to at-risk households.
The lawmaker, a noted economist, is the House focal person on inflation and fiscal policies.
Inflation, which hit 6.4 percent in August, seriously affected the prices of food and other basic commodities. Bicol, Salceda’s own region, recorded the highest inflation at 9 percent in the country. Salceda said this was alarming for Bicolanos as the region was the fourth poorest in the country. Price spikes in Bicol were noted in vegetables, with 27 percent; fish, 20 percent; corn, 17.7 percent; and rice, 12.5 percent.
Salceda called the 9-percent inflation in Bicol as “existential threat to development since it would increase the number of poor people and worsen hunger, thus causing higher malnutrition, which in turn results in higher stunting rate that deprives our youth of their physical and mental potentials.”
He said that because of its weight in the consumption mix, rice remained the driver of Bicol’s inflation and the National Food Administration should release more cheap imported rice, and during the harvest season starting October, intensify local palay purchase to protect rice farmers.
Salceda also recommended that the Department of Energy issue fuel vouchers for small fishermen, not just the transport sector, to subsidize fishing activities and increase catch.