Although agency officials agree on the importance of adopting a suggested retail price (SRP) for onions in markets around the country, the bureaucrats are hard pressed in determining the actual price range the vegetable should sell.
The SRP is believed a potent transparent tool against prevailing high price of commodities in markets around the country.
“It is very timely since the SRP, albeit only suggested, becomes the basis or benchmark for the right and justifiable price of onions. This will also be our basis (on the) need to import or if there are needed interventions to implement the SRP. We are still studying the right rates as we want to assure that the SRP will not affect the income of anyone,” Jose Diego Roxas, BPI spokesperson, said.
But Jayson Cainglet, Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) executive director, dismissed the SRP as a “toothless mechanism.”
Cainglet argued the BPI “should be aggressive” instead in tracking onion purchases by traders from farmers and cold storage owners.
BPI also said the government is still assessing the need to import onions, especially as to proper timing and volume of imports to prevent unduly harming the livelihood of local farmers.
At present, the supply of white onions can last till around mid-July as red onion supply should prove sufficient until November or December this year.
SINAG claimed the consensus is for the government to import 8,000 metric tons of white onions and ensure they arrive in July.
Agriculture senior undersecretary Domingo Panganiban gave assurance and ruled out another episode of extreme prices for onions reaching as high as P800 per kg will not be repeated.
“We have not issued any permit for onion imports in the last four months. Now, the Congress is asking us why we no longer import. We do not import since we still have a lot of onions in the Philippines,” Panganiban said.
The price of onion in public markets in the National Capital Region show the vegetable retailing from P160 to P200 per kilogram for both local red onion and local white onion.
