‘DTI proposal to scrap SRP to hit poor’

ANGELES CITY , Philippines  – The proposal of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to scrap the policy of suggested retail prices (SRP) for basic goods would hit the poorest the most, a lawmaker said yesterday.

Anakpawis party-list Rep. Ariel Casilao said this was because the proposal would lead to “unlimited price hikes” that would seriously hurt poor sectors such as workers and farmers. 

Republic Act 7581 or the Price Act provides for SRP printed on the packages of consumer products. 

“Amid the indigent state of the people, scrapping the SRP or liberalizing prices is another encumbrance and will definitely make the already poor poorer, who could not even afford the most basic of the basic goods such as food,” Casilao said in a press statement. 

He noted that basic goods include food such as rice, meat, fish, vegetables and manufactured goods such as canned fish, milk, coffee, detergent, bread, firewood and charcoal.

Essential drugs and household fuel like liquefied petroleum gas and kerosene are also included among basic goods, Casilao said.

“Trade and Industry (Secretary) Ramon  Lopez leads the Price Coordinating Council as mandated by the Price Act, and issuing suggested reasonable retail prices for basic commodities lies (within) his mandate, but he is planning to allow manufacturers to dictate their retail prices,” he said.

Casilao lamented that officials of the Duterte government “do not believe that a majority of the people are already in abject poverty and misery” and that demand is generally always higher than supply as the country lacks industries.

For this very reason, prices can reach the highest levels possible without the SRP policy. 

Casilao said with no significant wage hike and continuing contractualization of labor, worsening landlessness and displacement of farmers, price hikes of basic goods and lack of food security will only lead to more political instability in the country.

“We are confident that the President clearly knows history, as food price hikes build up people’s revolutions, such as the mid-19th century upheavals in France, Switzerland, Austria, Prussia, Hungary and a host of German principalities, where prices of bread spiked to unprecedented levels,” Casilao said.