Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said that while there should be no movements in prices of basic goods and commodities in the meantime, he also did not discount the possibility of adjustments in the suggested retail prices (SRP) given the impact of the skyrocketing prices of oil in the international market.

Lopez said this as prices of crude in the international market have gone up to over $96 per barrel as against the $70 per barrel last year.

“There should be no movement of prices and we did not receive submissions for increases in prices,” Lopez said over a radio interview.

Lopez said that aside from the impact on transportation and logistics cost, the crucial issue in high oil prices is its succeeding impact on industries that use oil in their operation. Eventually, he said, this will also affect agriculture production and fishing.

Already, operators of public transportation are already asking to bring back the minimum fare to P10 for jeepneys on top of their pending petition for a P6 increase in fares.

“So we have to ensure unhampered supply flow because at the end of the day the high cost of oil will impact on other inputs used in the processing at the plants,” he said.

He, however, said if there are submissions by industries to adjust prices, the DTI will conduct a study and the results would become basis for an adjusted SRP.

Based on the DTI model, the contribution of oil to manufacturing cost is 5-7 percent. There has been a 70 percent increase in oil prices, so far. If these factors are applied, Lopez said the DTI computation shows an increase in total cost of production of between 5 to 3.5 percent.

Although the increase in cost is still below 10 percent, Lopez said it could be significant enough to trigger movements in other inputs to production. This would be used as basis for any adjustments in the SRP.

He said that the SRP was only updated last year after two years of stable prices.