Forced retail prices

Egay Uy .

THE government will very soon implement “forced” retail prices of rice by next week, according to reports.  The retail prices were first enforced in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, and will be enforced in other areas of the country the week after.

While it has become an oxymoron of sorts, that is, suggested retail prices that are mandated by government, it is a welcome note for consumers, especially that it will eventually cover sugar, chicken and pork.  Consumers have been reeling from the effects of rice shortage that practically sky rocketed the price of rice in the country.

Under the forced retail prices, locally produced well-milled rice will be sold at not more than P44 per kilo while imported premium rice will be sold at not more than P43 per kilo.  Local regular-milled rice will be sold at not more than P39 per kilo, and well-milled imported rice will be priced at not more than 39 pesos per kilo.

And to remove the confusion as to the variety of rice being sold and bought in the market, the classifications will be limited to local regular-milled, local well-milled, imported well-milled and imported premium rice.

The forced retail prices however do not include special rice, such as heirloom rice, organic brown, red and black rice, dinorado, milagrosa, jasponica, malagkit, and other indigenous rice varieties.  These varieties will continue to have their respective prices float in the market.

We can just imagine the adverse effect of this enforcement on the pockets of grains traders, assuming that the current retail prices of rice are the real costs plus margin of the commodity.  But then again, the consumers have suffered for too long already.

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The recent round of inspections conducted by the Regulatory and Complaint Board and the Special Task Force created by Mayor Oscar Moreno to check on lodging houses that were reported by Balaud Mindanaw to have allegedly been the venues of sexual abuse of minors, revealed that most of the inspected regulated entities still failed to fully comply with regulations.

Among the violations noted were: failure to maintain separate logs book for minors, failure to renew health certificates of employees, failure to update payments of business permits, incomplete fire safety measures, unverifiable CCTV recordings, and several other violations.

The inspected businesses were reminded that the next time around the RCB and the special task force will be constrained to cause or recommend either or any combination of:  imposition of fines, temporary closure of business, permanent closure of business, and/or filing of criminal cases in court.

(Egay Uy is the chairman of the city’s Regulatory and Complaints Board, and co-chairman of the local price coordinating council.)