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295,000 jobs lost since Duterte assumed office, IBON maintains

Research group IBON stood by its estimates that close to 300,000 jobs were lost since the start of the Duterte administration after Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) honorary chair Sergio Ortiz-Luis said the group’s description of jobs lost is “deceiving”.

Ortiz-Luis reportedly said that it is deceiving to claim that the number of employed decreased by 300,000 just because there is data showing that employment dropped, even if there are new entrants to the labor market.

But Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data reports net employment generation, said IBON executive director Sonny Africa. “Net employment generation means employment created net of employment lost,” he explained.

“Ortiz-Luis’ argument about the number of entrants into the labor force is meanwhile puzzling because this is actually irrelevant in the PSA’s measurement of employed Filipinos,” Africa added.

“The number of employed reflects the number of jobs the economy generates, while the labor force measures those who have to compete with each other for whatever jobs the economy generates,” he explained.

PSA figures show that the number of employed fell from 40.954 million in July 2016 to 40.659 million July 2018.

IBON attributed the drop in the number of employed Filipinos to a huge 1.8 million reduction in agricultural employment over the same period.

Job losses and expensive food characterize the crisis in the agricultural sector, the group said.

IBON further said that job creation in the rest of the economy was not enough to compensate for the big agriculture job losses.

Gross job losses counted 2.2 million while gross job creation was only 1.9 million, hence the 295,000 drop in the number of employed.

The biggest job generation is in sectors that do not necessarily indicate a strong economy, IBON said, such as in the public sector and construction.

The group added that net job creation from July 2017 to July 2018 is feeble at 488,000 additional jobs compared to the 701,000 jobs created on average annually in the decade prior to the Duterte administration.

This failed to offset the 783,000 jobs lost in July 2017 from July 2016.

IBON said that Ortiz-Luis joins the administration’s economic managers in being dismissive of the jobs crisis becoming more severe under the Duterte administration.

“They have on the contrary hyped latest employment statistics as the highest among July rounds in the last 10 years, deflecting the issue of massive job losses,” the group said.

“It’s the economic managers that have been deceiving us, apparently Mr. Ortiz-Luis included,” Africa said. #

‘Sobra ang dagok’

“Dati, itong pechay-baguio, ang kuha namin ay nasa P90 lang. Ngayon, nasa P150 na. ‘Yung repolyo, dati P80. Ngayon, P180 na. Sobrang laki ang itinaas, kaya sobra rin ang nararamdaman namin na dagok.”–Mang Ricky, tindero ng gulay, Sitio San Roque, Quezon City

Jobs crisis getting worse under Duterte gov’t – IBON

Research group IBON said that the jobs crisis in the country is getting more severe under the Duterte administration.

The group said that the government should be more forthright and admit growing economic insecurity from inflation and joblessness rather than keep trying to downplay this.

Millions of Filipinos are jobless, including those excluded from official unemployment figures, or have jobs but endure poor quality work.

IBON said there are less jobs available now compared to the start of the Duterte administration.

The number of employed Filipinos has fallen by 295,000 from 40.95 million in July 2016 to just 40.67 million in July 2018.

This is largely due to a huge 1.8 million drop in agricultural employment over that period.

Job losses and expensive food characterize the crisis in the agricultural sector.

IBON pointed out that job creation in the rest of the economy was not enough to compensate for the huge job losses especially in agriculture.

There were gross job losses of 2.2 million between July 2016 and July 2018 but only 1.9 million in gross job creation, hence the 295,000 drop in the number of employed.

Moreover, the group said, the biggest job generation is in sectors that do not necessarily indicate a strong economy.

The largest part of additional employment since July 2016 was in the public sector where 500,000 jobs were created, followed by construction with 393,000 in likely mostly short-term work.

These were followed by 269,000 jobs in manufacturing which is potentially important but barely 14 percent of gross job creation in the last two years.

IBON stressed that net job creation in the economy is feeble. Only 488,000 additional jobs were generated in July 2018 from the year before.

This is less than the 701,000 jobs created on average annually in the decade 2006-2015 prior to the Duterte administration.

It was also not enough to make up for the huge 783,000 jobs lost in July 2017 from the last year, hence net job losses since the start of the administration.

This crisis is obscured in the official statistics because millions of discouraged workers are no longer counted as unemployed even if they are jobless and are just statistically dropped from the labor force, said the group.

Combined with the effect of K-12 implementation in senior high school (SHS) since 2016, the labor force participation rate has dropped to 60.1 percent in July 2018 which is the lowest in 36 years or since 1982.

There are also signs that the quality of work is drastically worsening, said IBON.

The number of under-employed, or those with jobs but seeking additional work, increased by 464,000 in July 2018 from the year before to reach 7 million.

The underemployment rate has correspondingly risen to 17.2 percent from 16.3 percent last year.

The current jobs crisis consists of the millions of jobless Filipinos including those who are no longer officially counted as unemployed and the millions of Filipinos who have jobs but suffer poor quality work that is not enough to live securely and decently.

As it is, IBON conservatively estimates at least 11.3 million unemployed (4.3 million) and underemployed (7.0 million) Filipinos as of July 2018 which is one in four (25 percent) of the labor force.

IBON said that amid skyrocketing prices and inflation, it is more urgent than ever to ensure sustainable and decent employment for millions of Filipinos.

The only long-term solution is for the government to invest in genuinely developing domestic agriculture and Filipino industries. #

Government losing control of economy –IBON

The Duterte administration is losing control over the Philippine economy and the poorest Filipinos are suffering for this, research group IBON said upon the release of the August inflation rate.

The greatly accelerating inflation is only the latest in a series of bad economic news about the economy’s so-called fundamentals.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the headline inflation rate in August 2018 accelerated to 6.4 percent or its highest in almost a decade from 5.7 percent in July.

This is more than double the 2.6 percent inflation in August 2017.

Inflation was highest in alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics at 21.6 percent year-on-year but inflation also worsened among food and non-alcoholic beverages, especially vegetables (19.2 percent), corn (12.6 percent), and fish (12.4 percent).

Meanwhile, from July to August 2018, steepest inflation occurred in vegetables (4.9 percent) and rice (2.1 percent).

IBON said that the rapid rise in food prices hits poor families the worst because food takes up a greater portion of their expenditure compared to higher income families.

The bottom 30 percent income group spends 59.7 percent of their expenditures on food, compared to just 30 percent for the upper 70 percent income group based on the 2015 Family Income and Expenditure Survey.

IBON estimates that the poorest six deciles of Filipino families with monthly incomes ranging from Php7,724 to Php21,119 have suffered income losses of around Php1,455 to Php3,781 due to inflation from January to August this year.

Other indicators of macroeconomic fundamentals are no better, IBON said.

The high August inflation comes on the heels of second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth which was the slowest in 12 quarters, the peso falling to its lowest in 13 years, first semester remittance growth the slowest in 17 years, trade and balance of payments deficits the worst in the country’s history, and gross international reserves (GIR) that are the lowest in nine years.

IBON added that the more rapid inflation means that prices are higher than ever and will remain high even if inflation tapers off in the coming months as government projects.

The government needs to become more decisive in addressing increasingly unaffordable goods and services, IBON said, adding immediate and longer term measures can be taken.

The most immediate is to stop implementation of the TRAIN law and particularly its inflationary consumption taxes, IBON stressed.

This will not arrest inflation completely but it will take away the most recent inflationary pressure that is also the one most directly within the government’s control. The government can also consider price controls, said the group.

The president has the authority to impose price controls not just in the case of calamities but also when there is illegal price manipulation and if prices of basic commodities are already deemed at unreasonable levels, it said.

The long-term solution however, IBON underscored, is to strengthen domestic agriculture and Filipino industry. These are essential to provide cheaper food, goods and services in the domestic market. This will also lessen imports and lower pressure on the peso to depreciate.

The group also said that another solution is to reverse the privatization or commercialization of water, power, education and health to take away the profit premium making these services more expensive.

These are steps that the Duterte administration’s economic managers hinder due to their stubborn adherence to failed neoliberal policies, said IBON.#

‘Local palay procurement over importation’

“NFA should prioritize local palay procurement over importation to stabilize rice prices and avoid the continuing rice crisis because of limited NFA rice supply.”—Bantay Bigas

‘Itaas sa P20 ang kilo ng palay’

“Isang dekada nang binibili ng NFA ng P17 kada kilo ang palay. Panahon na para taasan ang support price ng NFA at gawing P20 kada kilo.”–Zenaida Soriano, chairperson, Amihan

‘Hindi maiwasang mangutang’

“Ngayon pa nga lang, hirap na e. Paano pa ‘pag tumaas ‘yung presyo ng bigas? Lalo na high school na ‘yung mga anak ko, may mga panahon talagang hindi maiiwasang mangutang.” – Florenda Biagatindera ng kanin

Philippine TRAIN wreck

By Luis V. Teodoro

Living in the Philippines has always been challenging and difficult for many Filipinos. But never since the Marcos dictatorship has it been more dangerous than today for Lumad, dissenters, women, human rights defenders and the poor.

In response to life’s daily perils, some 20 percent of the population — or roughly 20 million men and women of the over 100 million residents of these isles of uncertainty — want to leave. These numbers are in addition to the nearly 11 million Filipinos scattered all over the globe from Angola to Zanzibar, of whom 47 percent are permanent immigrants, and 43 percent Overseas FilipinoWorkers (OFWs), according to data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).

But it isn’t just construction workers, seamen, nannies, and domestics who’re heading for the nearest airport — and who were most likely among the thousands whose flights were canceled or delayed because of the 38-hour shutdown of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) last weekend.

Engineers, doctors, nurses, teachers, even lawyers and other professionals are also among them. In the mid-1980s, the surge in the number of Filipinos leaving for alien shores alarmed those who saw in the exodus the irreparable loss not only of the brains but also of the brawn that are both crucial to the country’s development.

In the 1990s, the alarm turned into condemnation of those abandoning the country of their birth, accusing them of being unpatriotic and of being solely focused on earning as much as they could.

The critics ignored the fact that for many OFWs, working in another country had become, and still is, a matter of survival, there being hardly any job opportunities at home that would assure them and their families lives of dignity in a society that over the decades has become more and more impoverished.

As for professionals, some do leave in search of relative luxury abroad. But others are also in search of the certainty, order and predictability of life that are absent in the Philippines, which in their minds would assure their children brighter futures. The meritocracy that governs the professions and trades in developed countries — the system based on the principle that what you know rather than who you know should decide personal advancement — is also among the lures of emigration. Filipinos generally excel in other climes, thereby proving that it is the system they’re born into that hinders both their advancement and the realization of their potentials.

The long and the short of it is the common conviction that being elsewhere is preferable to being here. “Here” is the Philippines, where, despite its having been under fascist rule from 1972 to 1986 and being once again under a despotic regime, the trains still don’t run on time. (The trains’ supposedly being on time, the fascist government of Italy’s Benito Mussolini claimed during World War II, was symbolic of the efficiency of the dictatorship.)

The Philippines is instead rapidly turning into a total disaster, a metaphorical train wreck whose brutal reality is pushing even more and more Filipinos into leaving for whatever country will accept them as workers or immigrants — or at least enable them to evade being deported as undocumented aliens.

TRAIN, the Tax Reform Acceleration and Inclusion law and the unprecedented surge of inflation in its wake that has almost literally made prime commodities worth their weight in gold, are not the only components of that wreck. Above it all is the gross inefficiency, incompetence, corruption, violence, and sheer madness that’s endemic in what passes for governance today.

The monopoly of a handful of families since Commonwealth days, political power has been used to keep those few in pelf and privilege in the seven decades since their United States patron recognized Philippine independence in 1946. Every administration since then has been run by the dynasties earlier “trained in self- government” by the US colonial regime and later nurtured and protected by their US patrons. Every one of them has been committed to keeping the country the way it has always been for over a century: a backward agricultural country and a US economic, political, cultural and military dependency.

Rather than address the poverty and its attendant ills rooted in the semi-feudal and semi-colonial character of Philippine society, they use and have always used State violence and repression against the movements, individuals and groups that have tried to work for the changes that have eluded this country and its people for centuries. The rebellions, uprisings and revolutionary wars that have haunted Philippine society for over 300 years are the consequences of both the reality of poverty and injustice as well as of the repression the ruling cliques — whether Spanish, American or Filipino — have used in response to the demand for the democratization of political power.

Since its collapse, the Marcos terror regime (1965-1986) had seemed the worst expression of the dynasts’ limitless appetite for power and plunder. But at least two of its successor regimes have come close to challenging that dictatorship’s dubious distinction.

The Macapagal-Arroyo regime (2001-2010) tried, but despite its sordid human rights and scandal-ridden record, didn’t quite make it as a Marcos regime clone during the near-decade it was in power. Instead, it is the current regime that in the brief span of twenty-five months is well on the way to becoming a worse version of the Marcos kleptocracy.

Not only has his regime amassed a record of human rights violations way above that of Ferdinand Marcos’ 19-year occupancy of Malacanang. President Rodrigo Duterte is also presiding over the complete return to power of the Marcoses via the siblings “Imee” and “Bongbong” and their unrepentant kin and cronies. In patent violation of the Constitution, Mr. Duterte has gone as far as to express his preference for the latter rather than for Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo to succeed him should he resign, and to even invite a military junta to seize State power to prevent a Constitutional succession.

But it’s far from surprising. The regime’s lawlessness and contempt for the Constitution are by now close to the stuff of legend. The Duterte police force, acting above the law and with total impunity, has slaughtered thousands including women and children in the course of the selective “war” on illegal drugs, and arrested and detained thousands more for such “offenses” as loitering, some of whom have been killed while in custody.

Should he survive the remaining four years of his term, Mr. Duterte is likely to be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity. But before the advent of that moment of historical retribution, the regime war against the poor and the future is continuing to ravage entire communities.

The debasement of democratic discourse he has achieved through his rants, profanities, ravings and encouragement of hate speech and the use of State violence against dissenters and regime critics has made the reform of Philippine society through peaceful means impossible. Instead of the sustainable peace he promised the electorate in 2016, the country today has never been more divided and in peril of even worse conflicts since Ferdinand Marcos erected a dictatorship on the ruins of the Republic.

Only the willfully blind, the intellectually dishonest, and the mercenary will mistake for progress the ruin of Philippine society Mr. Duterte and company have completed. More and more Filipinos are thus leaving for foreign lands, compelled by need and concern for the future to look elsewhere in this planet for a refuge from the terrors of the man-made disaster the country has become.

First published in BusinessWorld. Photo from PCOO.

PH Economy Duterteriorating

IBON FEATURES – Stay the course, the country’s economic managers always insist. They will be the last to admit bad economic news because eternal sunshine is part of their job. Their recent spontaneous reactions against federalism are however more revealing. They are losing control of the economy as it is and they know the ill-conceived self-serving federalism project will just make things worse.

After just a little over two years of the Duterte administration, the economy is stumbling with adverse movements in key economic indicators. It is not yet a severe economic crisis nor necessarily about to be one soon. Still, it is clear that the fundamentals are unsound and the economy is increasingly vulnerable to a political upheaval or to a renewed global downturn.

The majority of Filipinos are poor and gained little when times were supposedly good – but they will be hit the worst when the illusion of progress is finally broken.

Unsound fundamentals

Government economists like to invoke macroeconomic ‘fundamentals’ particularly when supposed economic good news are not being felt by the people. The argument is that these are vital to eventually bettering Filipino lives so the concern for them is a concern for the masses.

This would be believable if there were not habitual inattention to things of more direct everyday relevance to people like higher wages or better social services or insistence on anti-people measures like regressive taxes. In practice, the concern about certain economic indicators is really more because they matter to the investment and production decisions of big business and foreign investors.

The administration’s problem today, even if they will not admit it, is that many of the so-called fundamentals are taking a turn for the worse.

The most headline-grabbing is inflation which is already up to 5.7% in July 2018. This is more than double the 2.5% in the same period a year ago and four times the 1.3% inflation rate in June 2016 at the start of the Duterte administration. It is the highest inflation since March 2009 or a nearly 10-year high. While businesses worry about how to plan ahead, tens of millions of the poorest Filipino households worry about how their lives are just becoming even more difficult.

Unemployment is also high. The reported low unemployment rate of 5.5% or just 2.4 million unemployed Filipinos in April 2018 is misleading. It is based on a revised definition of unemployment that among others does not count millions of discouraged workers. IBON’s preliminary estimate according to the original definition is an unemployment rate of around 9.1% or some 4.1 million unemployed. Adding the 6.9 million underemployed then means 11.1 million unemployed and underemployed Filipinos which is a sizeable one in four of the labor force.

Employment generation is in any case tepid. Job generation in April 2018 from the same period in the year before was an unremarkable 625,000 new jobs. This is just around the historical average since the 1980s and actually even less than average annual employment generation of over 800,000 since the 2000s. The quality of work is moreover undermined by low pay, poor benefits and apparently unabated contractualization.

Worse, neoliberal logic during times of high inflation means that working class Filipinos will not get meaningful wage hikes just when they need these more than ever. Economic managers will likely use rising cost-push inflation to justify keeping wages low. The government will choose to manage inflation by making Filipino working people make do with less, while ensuring that firms maintain their profits.

Worst in years

Economic growth is slowing. The 6.0% growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2018 is down from 6.6% in the same period last year. It is also the slowest in the past 12 quarters since the second quarter of 2015. This is despite the debt-driven surge in construction and government spending since the start of the year.

Among the reasons for this are sluggish exports amid the unresolved global crisis. Exports are overwhelmingly by foreign firms in export enclaves and actually contribute little to national development. In any case, the export slowdown to 13% in the second quarter from 21.4% in the same period last year has dragged first semester export growth to its slowest since 2015.

Imports on the other hand continue to grow because domestic production is still backward. The country remains overly dependent on imports of capital, intermediate and consumer goods for local and export zone use. The trade deficit soared to US$19.1 billion in the first half of 2018 which is a huge 62.6% more than in the same period last year and the worst semestral deficit in the country’s history.

More expensive imported oil contributes to the swelling import bill and trade deficit aside from also pushing domestic inflation. The country would be less vulnerable to rising global oil prices if the oil industry were not deregulated and if there was not just lip service to transitioning to more sustainable renewable energy.

Portfolio investment inflows from abroad in May, June and July fell from the same respective periods last year. The US$959 million inflow in July 2018 is a marked  33.1% decline from US$1.4 billion in the same month last year. Portfolio investments are volatile especially on a month-to-month basis. At any rate the US$9.8 billion in inflows to date in 2018 is a slight 1.8% dip from the same period last year.

The bulk of this so-called hot money goes to Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE)-listed securities and the PSE index (PSEi) has been generally falling. The PSEi breached 9000 in January but has fallen to around the 7000-7800 range since May. The foreign buyer-heavy PSEi is showing foreign investors voting with their feet.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is among the government’s most favored indicators of investor confidence. This is probably even more so now than usual because reported FDI inflows seem to be the only bright spot left – the US$4.9 billion in FDI in the first five months of 2018 is a notable 48.9% increase from the same period last year. Whether this trend will continue though is uncertain. Approved investments in the first half of 2018 declined by 5.3% to Php292 billion from Php308 billion in the same period last year.

Even remittances from overseas Filipinos are becoming less reliable than before. Cash remittances fell to US$2.36 billion in June 2018 which is 4.5% less than US$2.47 billion in the same month last year. This dragged down remittance growth in the first semester of 2018 to 2.6% from the same period in 2017, which is also the slowest first semester growth since 2001 or in the past 17 years.

Measured on a year-on-year basis, monthly remittances were consistently growing in the 11 1/2 years between May 2003 and October 2014. Monthly declines are however becoming much more frequent and there have already been 10 months of year-on-year declines in just the last 36 months since July 2015.

Dollars come in and dollars go out. All told, the country’s balance of payments (BOP) deficit for the first seven months of 2018 has almost tripled to US$3.7 billion from US$1.4 billion in the same period last year. The government dismisses the huge deficit as due to imports of raw materials and capital goods to support domestic economic expansion. It should however also realize that the country’s growth pattern is not really building domestic capacity that ends chronic import-dependence or creates a sustainable growth momentum.

These are exerting considerable pressure on the  peso which is depreciating rapidly. The average monthly rate of Php53.43 to the US dollar in July 2018 is its lowest value in over 12 1/2 years or since the Php53.61 exchange rate in December 2005. Year-to-date, the Philippine peso is the worst performing among the major currencies in East Asia – losing more value than the yuan, won, Taiwanese dollar, rupee, ringgit, Singaporean dollar, rupiah and yen.

The worsening deficit is also driving gross international reserves (GIR) ever lower. The end-July 2018 GIR level of US$76.9 billion is 5.1% less than the same period last year. The country’s external liquidity buffer is down to 7.4 months’ equivalent of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income from 8.4 months’ worth in the same time last year. This is already much less than the peak 11.8 month import cover reached in 2013 and as low as nine years ago in April 2009 when it was 7.3 months’ worth.

Wavering economic drivers

The factors that have been driving the economy recently are subsiding. The post-2008/09 low global interest rate environment is fading fast. Overseas remittances are slowing and business process outsourcing (BPO) is losing momentum. These depress household consumption and curb the real estate boom.

On the other hand, factors restraining economic growth are on the rise. Tax-, depreciation- and oil price-driven inflation is squeezing household purchasing power and rising interest rates are tempering business expansion and investment. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has hiked interest rates thrice in May, June and August to try and stem inflation as well as to keep the country attractive to foreign speculative capital. The monetary board’s policy interest rate has risen from a steady 3% since June 2016 to 4% already by August this year.

Bank lending was actually already slowing since the middle of 2017 or even before these rate hikes. Consumer confidence and business expectations indices have also been steadily falling since the last quarter of 2016. All of these will dampen demand and eventually also output.

The economy is then in a precarious situation of high inflation, high unemployment, slowing growth, rising interest rates, swelling trade deficits, a failing peso, and stagnation of agriculture and Filipino industry. This combines with growing political uncertainty from resurgent and wider protests driven by economic discontent, assertions of human rights, and opposition to corrupt and authoritarian governance.

Short-term trends should certainly be interpreted cautiously. The recent deterioration in so many indicators is however consistent with deep structural problems in the economy. The most important long-term issue is the chronic underdevelopment of domestic production sectors.

Agriculture and fisheries are still backward and not even keeping up with population growth. Some 723,000 agricultural jobs were even reported lost in April 2018. Food prices will stay high if the sector is not given more attention and developed. Industrialization meanwhile is superficial. Reported manufacturing growth is mainly by foreign firms and their domestic subcontractors with shallow links to the domestic economy rather than driven by burgeoning Filipino industry.

Modern domestic agriculture and Filipino industry are the most reliable foundations of endogenous domestic growth. The government’s reaction is however grossly short-sighted. In particular, the debt-driven infrastructure offensive will be a limited and momentary stimulus at best. But even this will only be to the extent that limits on the absorptive capacity of government and of the private sector to implement the projects are overcome. The adverse effect of rising interest rates on the national debt also cannot be underestimated.

Ending poverty

The government is doing something wrong. It is way past time to discard neoliberal Dutertenomics for an economic program that really does end poverty. The government does not have to look far for ideas on how to start doing things right.

The mass movement came out with the wide-ranging People’s Agenda that Pres. Rodrigo Duterte personally received on his first day in office in end-June 2016. The government’s own National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) proposed a fresh anti-poverty framework in January 2018 which has been taken up in inter-agency consultations and a national anti-poverty conference last month in July.

Even the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) weighed in long ago with its bold proposed Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) in 1998. This was updated in 2017 and the government and the NDFP were negotiating and actually making progress on a mutually acceptable CASER until the peace talks were unceremoniously scuttled in June this year.

Decades of neoliberalism have generated profits and wealth for a few at the expense of tens of millions of Filipino farmers, workers, informal sector odd-jobbers, and low-paid employees. The call to be patient as the government perseveres with fundamentally unsound policies is unacceptable. If anything, the danger of intensified crisis makes it all the more urgent to immediately change course. #

Poor Filipino families worst hit by rising July 2018 inflation

Research group IBON said that faster inflation largely due to rising food prices hits poor households the worst.

The group also said that the Duterte administration’s proposal to increase food imports is short-sighted, and that the best defense against rising food prices and high inflation is to increase domestic food supply through long-term solutions that correct long-standing government neglect of agriculture.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that July 2018 inflation rose to 5.7 percent from 5.2 percent the previous month.

This was mostly driven by worsening inflation in food and non-alcoholic beverages with higher rates among nine out of 11 commodity items in the index.

Prices rose fastest for vegetables (16 percent), corn (13 percent), and fish (11.4 percent).

IBON said that this increasingly expensive food is particularly problematic for poor families because food takes up a greater portion of their expenditure compared to higher income families.

According to the latest available data from the 2015 Family Income and Expenditures Survey, 59.7 percent of the expenditures of families in the bottom 30 percent income group was spent on food compared to just 38.8 percent for families in the upper 70 percent income group.

Rising prices will push more families into hunger and poverty, the group said.

The Duterte administration is proposing to arrest escalating food prices and inflation by lowering tariffs on food to increase their importation.

IBON however said that while this could give some immediate relief it is only a short-sighted measure and the government is still failing to come up with long-term solutions to rising domestic food prices.

The much-needed long-term solution is to increase domestic agricultural, fisheries and livestock productivity, said the group.

Yet the Duterte administration is proposing to increase food imports while cutting the Department of Agriculture (DA)’s proposed budget for 2019 by Php862 million, making it 1.7 percent lower than in 2018.

Domestic producers lacking government support are at risk of being undermined or displaced by cheap food imports.

IBON said that additional food imports should only be for a short time until prices stabilize.

 

Suspending the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law will also greatly reduce inflationary pressures.

 

The group stressed that measures to increase farm productivity should immediately be implemented including providing irrigation, production and storage facilities, extension services, subsidized credit and marketing support, among others. #