Price ceilings on pork and chicken in Metro Manila will be enforced until April 8 even as retailers can hardly comply with the caps.
Secretary William Dar of the Department of Agriculture (DA) said lifting the SRPs as clamored by hog raisers and legislators would result to the dramatic rise in prices of pork and chicken.
Dar said the imposition of the SRPs is effective in lowering prices .
Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said based on feedback, pork prices have gone down from previous weeks but these, in some cases, are still above SRPs.
Lopez agrees supply would be the effective solution but since the African swine fever (ASF) continues to impact local production , Dar said the country will import 400,000 metric tons this year from ASF-free countries.
Dar rejected calls of hog raisers to raise the price ceilings saying the actual average pork and chicken prices are higher than the caps imposed by Executive Order (EO) 124.
The EO pegs the cap on pork kasim and pigue at P270 per kilogram (kg); liempo at P300 per kg and; dressed chicken, P160 per kg.
The DA said total hog and carcass deliveries from various regions to Metro Manila from February 8 to March 7 have reached 127,868 heads equivalent to 823,673 kg. of carcass for an average of 4,567 heads and 28,417 kg daily, exceeding Metro Manila’s average daily requirement of 4,000 heads.
The DA said that hog and carcass deliveries to Metro Manila public markets peak every Wednesday, coming from Calabarzon, Mimaropa, Western Visayas, Soccsksargen and Northern Mindanao. With Irma Isip
