MANILA – Inflation may not slow down in the fourth quarter of 2018 contrary to the position of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) that it will decelerate in the last three months of the year, an economist said.
Prices of goods and services spiked to 6.4 percent in August, a nine-year high.
“Ngayon pa lang ‘yung 6.4 ‘di na nila inaasahan ‘yan. Kumbaga namiss na nila ‘yung forecast nila ngayon pa lang. Actually ngayon napapaisip na yata sila na masyadong mababa ‘yung sinabi nila,” JC Punongbayan said in an interview with GMA Network’s resident analyst Richard Heydarian.
“I mean hindi makatotohanan ‘yung sinabi nila na bababa na ‘yung fourth quarter, especially with the disaster,” Punongbayan noted.
Typhoon “Ompong” hit Northern Luzon on Saturday, Sept. 15, inflicting damage to life, crops, and infrastructure.
Punongbayan, a professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics, pointed out that inclement weather is the reason for problems in rice distribution and vegetable supply.
“Pero kasi, for example, kung maaalala natin, ‘yung bad weather ‘yun pa rin ang dahilan kung bakit nahirapan ‘yung pagdistribute nung NFA rice. Tapos ang problema din diyan ‘yung problema ng mga gulay … So to the extent na kung totoo nga ‘yun, ibig sabihin maaasahan natin na papalo pa ‘yung inflation,” Punongbayan pointed out.
Inflation was likely to peak in the third quarter of 2018 before being tempered by non-monetary measures in the last three months of the year, despite the damage from typhoon “Ompong,” according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
“We continue to see inflation peaking in the third quarter of 2018 … In October, November, December, we do expect that those non-monetary measures that the economic cluster committee (proposed) will provide some support to the decline of inflation moving forward,” BSP deputy governor Diwa Guinigundo said in a press briefing at the BSP headquarters in Manila.
Due to the devastation brought by “Ompong,” the economic team wants the Philippine government to declare a state of calamity so that the country may “access the $500-million loan from the World Bank.”
Punongbayan noted the government must focus instead on what has been hounding food supply instead of declaring a state of calamity.
“‘Yung calamity man-made. So unahin natin ‘yung mga problema ng gobyerno, for example sa NFA, food …” he said. (GMA News)
