Labor group belittles drop in inflation
Militant group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) belittled Malacanang's claim that the decisive action of President Rodrigo Duterte to address the soaring prices of consumer goods has dropped the inflation rate to six percent last month.
The group believes that the .7 percent decrease of inflation will not trickle down to the lowly wage earners but would rather benefit the commodity speculators, traders, and industrialists.
"If ever the easing on inflation will result into a drop in wholesale prices, traders will use it as an opportunity to buy cheap and sell dearly during the holidays as workers have received their 13th month pay and bonuses. A same trend could now be seen at the stock market," read a BMP statement.
The labor group added that even before prices of basic necessities could trickle down the level of retailers it would dramatically increase again as demand rises during the holidays.
“Between today and the holidays, there is an insignificant amount of time for the workers and poor to feel the effects of the drop in inflation on retail prices of their basic needs, if there will be any,” said Leody De Guzman, BMP chairperson.
De Guzman said that with such a small window, this will hardly make a dent on market prices before it starts rising again.
De Guzman anticipates that the second tranche of the oil excise tax, which levies an additional P4.50 for diesel and P9 for gasoline, will unleash more fatal blows to families of wage earners and those belonging to the informal economy once it is implemented.
The group also scoffed at presidential spokesperson and legal adviser Salvador Panelo's claim that the president took “decisive action” to soften the impacts of his unpopular TRAIN Law.
They argued that groups and ordinary citizens were already up in arms as early as 2017 and yet the administration still forced the tax imposition despite popular resistance.
De Guzman said that he and his party, Partido Lakas ng Masa, will pursue the immediate scrapping of the entire excise tax package on crude oil as well as the collection of value added tax on petroleum and petroleum products to unburden consumers with over taxation.
"The coming elections will be payback time. Organizations will use the campaign period as a platform to hold the politicians allied the Duterte administration accountable for the miseries they have imposed on us. Our individual votes shall collectively be a political statement as reflected in our ballots,” de Guzman said.