Garlic cartel returning in the Philippines
She said the resurgence of the cartel involves government officials and businessmen cornering the importation of garlic and controlling the supply.
Villar expressed dismay over the practice by officials of the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) under the Department of Agriculture (DA) to issue import permits to traders who do not really bring in the needed volume of garlic into the country.
“I told them to penalize traders who ask for import permits but do not import garlic to destroy the law of supply and demand. They should realize that we should be relying on importations,” Villar told reporters after the hearing.
She said traders applied and were granted permits to import 57,000 metric tons of garlic last year but they only brought in 12,000 MT and jacked up prices. Villar said based on her initial study, a P100 per kilo price of garlic is “reasonable.”
“(But) if the price per kilo of garlic reaches P200 to P300, there’s surely price manipulation,” she said.
source: philstar.com
