Prices of food supplies in Mindanao markets soar amid Ramadhan

COTABATO CITY— The Bangsamoro government and its constituent-local government units have fused ranks to stop the practice of unscrupulous traders to increase prices of food supplies they sell in markets during the Islamic Ramadhan season.

This year’s Ramadhan started last Tuesday and shall last for 28 to 29 days, based on the lunar Hijrah calendar.

Rosslaine Alonto Sinarimbo, director-general of the Ministry of Trade, Investments and Tourism-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, told reporters on Thursday that they are closely monitoring the prices of goods in the markets and are to initiate immediate action against abusive traders.

Muslim netizens in many towns and cities in administrative regions in Mindanao and in parts of the Bangsamoro region lamented on Facebook the sudden increase in prices of fishes, vegetables, chicken and other food supplies in the markets after the Ramadhan started on Tuesday.

“Officials and employees of our provincial offices are closely monitoring the prices of food in the markets in areas under their jurisdiction,” Alonto-Sinarimbo said.

Alonto-Sinarimbo said that personnel of the MITT-BARMM had been directed to address the problem along with the local government units in provinces under their jurisdiction.

Officials of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government-BARMM said that their provincial offices had also been ordered to help monitor the prices of food supplies sold the markets in the towns in Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

Muslim residents in Cotabato City and nearby towns in Maguindanao del Norte told reporters the cost of sea and freshwater fishes in the local markets have increased by 10 to 40 percent after the start last Tuesday of the Ramadhan, for them so exorbitant.

"We are supporting the initiative of the BARMM government in solving this problem," the entrepreneur Ronald Hallid Dimacisil Torres, president of the Bangsamoro Business Council, said.

Muslims buy food about double the volume of what they procure daily during the ordinary months since families and relatives usually partake of their daily iftar, or first meal after a day-long fast together.

Fasting from dawn to dusk during the Ramadhan, a holy month for Muslims, one of the “five pillars” of Islam, which include absolute belief in Allah, praying five times a day facing west, giving of alms to the poor, and performing hajj or pilgrimage to Makkah in Saudi Arabia for those who can afford the cost of travel.

The sick, the elderly and children are exempted from fasting during the Ramadhan.