Traders, middlemen blamed for soaring commodity prices

MANILA, Philippines — The soaring prices of basic commodities in the market despite the wide gap in farmgate and retail prices are brought by as much as 200 percent profit of middlemen and traders, according to administration lawmakers.

“There is somebody earning so much from the farmgate prices up to the time it reaches the retail outlets,” Iloilo Rep. Ferjenel Biron said earlier this week.

“It was an eye-opener for the committee to pursue actions against all these violators. So in our subsequent hearings, I’m sure we will be able to know who these people are,” Biron, who chairs the House panel on trade and industry, added.

Biron said he got confirmation from the Organization of Supermarkets that their profit margin was only eight percent and 10 percent for frozen commodities.

“In other words, the profit of the end-user, the supermarket, is very miniscule,” he said.

Rep. Mikaela Angela Suansing of Nueva Ecija’s first district, a member of the House committee on agriculture and food security, agreed with Biron.

Suansing said the problem lies in the “wide gap between traders and middlemen,” not farmers and retail owners.

Suansing, who authored the Rice Tariffication Law, said they were able to bring down the cost of production for farmers, but the problem lies in the supply chain.

The lawmaker also said that while efforts should still continue to help ease the burden of farmers, the P10 billion yearly allocation for the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund should be increased to P15 billion.

Biron and Speaker Martin Romualdez were dismayed in the way the Departments of Agriculture and Trade have been handling the soaring prices of goods.

Curb inflation - senators

Meanwhile, senators yesterday urged the government to curb inflation and improve social services as more Filipinos experience involuntary hunger in the first quarter of the year.

They were reacting to the results of a Social Weather Stations survey from March 21 to 25, which showed that 14.2 percent of respondents saying their families experienced involuntary hunger or “being hungry and not having anything to eat at least once” in the past three months.

It was up from 12.6 percent in December 2023 and the highest since the 16.8 percent hunger rate in May 2021.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III said the hunger incidence was worsened by the El Niño phenomenon.

Pimentel urged the government to improve social welfare assistance.

“I call on the government to accelerate the welfare programs for the people like AICS,” he said, referring to the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation program.

Sen. Francis Escudero said the government should “be able to curb inflation to lower involuntary hunger.”

Sen. Francis Tolentino called for a price freeze on basic commodities such as rice to curb inflation during the dry season.