Gatchalian urges DOF to form task force to address inflation

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Wednesday urged the Department of Finance (DOF) to create a multi-agency task force that will be responsible for mitigating the effects of rising inflation in the country.

Gatchalian said the task force should come up with a holistic approach to address the rising prices of commodities.

He said the task force "can be a multi-sectoral and multi-departmental task force so that we can come up with a holistic approach to curbing inflation."

The senator said although many of the mitigating measures presented by different agencies in the government economic cluster could be implemented within 90 days, these were "a hodgepodge of different measures and different strategies."

"I would really like to have a unified approach to this issue and I think the right agency to do that is DOF, together with DBM (Department of Budget and Management)," he added.

During the hearing of the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs headed by Gatchalian last week, the DOF admitted that it has yet to compute the indirect effect of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion and (TRAIN) law on inflation.

During the hearing, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said the four major drivers for July 2018 inflation were rising food prices because of the weather; higher excise taxes on sweetened beverages and fuel, and the scheduled increase in excise tax of tobacco products; higher electricity generation charges and increase in water rates; and the approved provisional P1 jeepney minimum fare increase in the National Capital Region and Regions 3 and 4.

It was mentioned during the hearing the delays in the implementation of various social mitigation measures, including the 10 percent discount on rice sold by the National Food Authority (NFA), the Unconditional Cash Transfer program, and the Pantawid Pasada program.

The NFA has admitted that it has yet to implement the 10-percent discount because no funding has been given by the DBM.

Gatchalian said he plans to conduct more committee hearings "as long as inflation is an ongoing concern."

He expressed hoped the concerned agencies would be able to present concrete progress in the implementation of these measures at future hearings.

"It's really not only about getting information from the different departments, but also pushing the different departments to fulfill their promises to the people," he said.