(MANILA BULLETIN)

Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda is anything but surprised by the faster inflation recorded for the month of August.

"The general situation is expected, since much of the upward price movement is driven by world trade dynamics," Salceda said on Tuesday, Sept. 5, in reaction to the 5.3 percent inflation for the previous month.

"Rice, corn, and flour drive the vast majority of food inflation. Apart from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, which has driven world prices of grain upward to historic levels, the Indian export ban on rice has disrupted global rice supply," noted the economist-congressman.

"Next to China, we are the world's largest importer of rice, so it was bound to affect us first," Salceda said.

But the Committe on Ways and Means chairman insisted that the Philippines' reputation as a high-volume rice importer wasn't all negative.

"Our size as a rice trading market also gives us some power over the global price dynamic -- and President [Ferdinand "Bongbong"] Marcos' EO 39 was a good initial step in signalling that we will not tolerate price manipulation in the global rice trade."

Marcos' Executive Order (EO) No.39 imposed a P41 per kilo price cap for regular milled rice and P45 per kilo price cap for well-milled rice. The EO was signed amid steadily rising prices of the staple grain, which can reach between P55 to P60 per kilo.

"Moving forward," Salceda said, "We should work with our trading partners to ensure that they honor their contracts. The ASEAN summit is an opportunity for PBBM to push for a regional consensus that we will not restrict each other's rice supply."

"I also expect the downward trend in the year-on-year inflation rate to resume this September and towards the end of the year," he said.