President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has ordered the continuous distribution of cash transfers and fuel discounts to vulnerable sectors amid the recent rise in inflation.
Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) Officer-in-Charge Cheloy E. Velicaria-Garafil said the President’s order aims to allow affected groups to cope with rising cost of living.
“This will be part of the government’s key response to rising inflation, even as we continue to build on climate action and food security,” Garafil said in a news statement issued on Friday.
She added among the priority actions is the provision of support to farmers and other stakeholders in the agriculture sector for post-disaster recovery through investments in climate-smart technologies.
It also includes the creation of the Department of Water Resources, which will handle the effective management of the country’s water resources.
“We assure the public that the government continues to monitor inflation and all contributing factors, and will explore all other measures to alleviate its impact on our people,” Garafil said.
Inflation rate last month accelerated to 7.7 percent from 6.9 percent in September, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said the trend was caused by “external pressures such as global inflation brought about by compounding factors, including the Russia-Ukraine war and fiscal instability as an effect of the Covid-19 pandemic and domestic issues such as the impact of recent typhoons.”
Labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM), for its part, demanded for a new round of pay increase to offset the impact of inflation on the real value of wages.
“[The] P76 has been eroded from the P570 minimum wage in Metro Manila as a result of the continuous rise in prices,” PM national chair Renato Magtubo said in a news statement.
“We call for a new round of wage hikes to recover the lost purchasing power of workers not just in Metro Manila but in the whole country due to the surge in inflation,” he added.
PM is demanding for the passage of the pending bill granting workers a P100 across-the-board salary increase, saying the existing minimum wage rates nationwide is no longer sufficient.