ADB report on poverty worries Malacañang

(Updated 5:09 p.m.) Malacañang is worried about an Asian Development Bank report that as much as 4.12 million Filipinos may slide into poverty this year on the unabated rise in food prices. "Certainly, it is a cause for concern for the government. Nobody wants to have that. Nobody wants to see those numbers go up the way that [ADB] is projecting," deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte told reporters in an interview. Valte said the government is in the process of "threshing out several measures" to keep food prices from steeply increasing. The Department of Trade and Industry, for instance, is constantly monitoring the prices of basic commodities just to make sure that "any increase would be reasonable and nobody would take advantage of certain situations," she said. The Palace is expecting good harvest when it comes to rice. "You know, rice is one of our staples, so we're taking a very close watch on that as well," Valte said. The government also has the fuel subsidy program, or Pantawid Pasada scheme, to cushion the impact of rising oil prices in the Philippines and in the world markets, she added. "The other thing is that, for some reason, there always seems to be [a] question on what the vision of the government is and what the long-term plan is," the spokesperson said. "But, again, when it comes to prices, we’ve been consistently saying that we want to initiate, we want to complete the shift from our dependency on gas and oil into [natural gas] and to electric power," Valte added. Higher commodity prices The ADB study, titled "Global Food Price Inflation and Developing Asia," noted that resurgent global food prices, which posted record increases in the first two months of the year, have threatened to push millions of people in developing Asia, including the Philippines, into extreme poverty. The study said that fast and persistent increases in the cost of many Asian food staples since the middle of last year —with the price of crude oil surging to a 31-month high in March, are a serious setback for the region, which has rebounded rapidly and strongly from the global economic crisis. Production shortfalls caused by bad weather along with a weak US dollar, high oil prices, and subsequent export bans by several key food producing countries, have caused much of the global price pressures since last June, with double digit increases in the price of wheat, corn, sugar, edible oils, dairy products and meat, according to the study. The price of rice is likely to continue its uptrend as the effects of La Niña persist, prompting consumers to seek less costly and less nutritious substitutes, it added. "To avert this looming crisis it is important for countries to refrain from imposing export bans on food items, while strengthening social safety nets," the ADB stressed. "Efforts to stabilize food production should take center stage, with greater investments in agricultural infrastructure to increase crop production and expand storage facilities, to better ensure grain produce is not wasted," it added. — VS, GMA News