Lanao Sur's Adiong asks BARMM to impose price control on basic goods
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 20:00 PM Mon Apr 13, 2020
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By:
Nash B. Maulana
Lanao Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong. (file photo of PIA)
COTABATO CITY - The governor of Lanao del Sur wants a “judicious policy” set by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to implement automatic price control and peg tag-ceiling on essential commodities in that province.
In a letter to BARMM Chief Minister Ahod Balawag Hadji Murad Ebrahim, Lanao del Sur Governor Mamintal Bombit Alonto Adiong Jr. said his province has activated its Local Price Coordinating Council (LPCC) to help stabilize level of supply and prices of essential commodities in the province.
Adiong said the Lanao del Sur Provincial LPCC needed such support from BARMM as “laying down of Suggested Retail Prices (SRP) which is supposed to be implemented jointly by the region’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and Agrarian Reform (MAFAR), the Ministry of Trade Industry and Tourism (MTIT), and the Ministry of Health (MOH).
He said it will also help to deploy a “dedicated monitoring team” in Marawi City and in the province’s 39 municipalities to effectively implement Republic Act 7581 or the Price Act of 1992.
Earlier, Adiong, together with the Bangon Marawi Chamber of Commerce, Inc. and other local business groups, organized rolling stores tracked around Lanao del Sur municipalities to contain potential factors that may trigger situation of unregulated price-increases.
Adiong said the provincial government’s Economic and Policy Advisory Team (EPAT) has recommended for the reactivation of the Provincial LPCC as well as the organizing of rolling stores.
EPAT’s recommendations, he said, were designed “to continuously provide sound solutions to issues affecting economic recovery and development of the province.”
Governor Adiong’s request comes at a time when prices of basic, prime and essential commodities in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur have reportedly increased in the duration of the enhanced community quarantine. The provincial government of Lanao del Sur has declared ECQ in a bid to help control the spread of the dreaded corona virus in the province. Nash B. Maulana