Speaker vows sustained monitoring of agricultural products

Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez on Thursday vowed to continue monitoring the prices of onions, rice and other agricultural products.

Romualdez made the pledge as he commended the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for filing charges against those behind the unprecedented increases of onions prices, peaking at P700 a kilo in the latter part of 2022.

Suspecting hoarding and price manipulation, and in line with the desire of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to make agricultural products affordable, the Speaker asked the Committee on Agriculture to inquire into the runaway prices of onions.

He said the filing of criminal and administrative charges against those behind the increase “is a product in part of our extensive investigation.”

“We welcome this result and we expect prosecutors to make the charges stick. We will continue to monitor prices and we will not hesitate to exercise our power of oversight by conducting an investigation and prodding agencies so we can protect the public from high prices and inflation,” he said.

The Speaker also commended the Agriculture committee, particularly its chairman Quezon Rep. Mark Enverga and its lead investigator Marikina City Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo, for conducting a successful inquiry.

The House committee concluded its four-month investigation after Quimbo succeeded in unmasking the personalities involved in the cartel, believed responsible for hoarding and price manipulation of onions.

The congressional hearings resulted in a drastic drop of onion prices from P700 to P160 per kilo.

Romualdez expressed dismay over the alleged involvement of officials of the Department of Agriculture (DA) in the onion price manipulation.

“As public officers, we are expected to protect our people, not to make them suffer from abusive and illegal practices,” he said.

He urged the DOJ and the NBI to run after other officials and private citizens suspected of participation in price manipulation and hoarding of onions, rice and other basic staples.

He also asked concerned government agencies like the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) to sanction complicit organizations under their supervision…

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