Kristine Mae V.

Sampuang
BSE-1A

CRITIQUE ABOUT WHY IS PHILIPPINE INFLATION NOW THE

HIGHEST IN ASEAN?

Inflation has become the primary problem in the Philippine economic situation. The article
entitled “Why is Philippine inflation now the highest in ASEAN?” written by JC Punongbayan is
all about the causes of fast inflation in the Philippines that makes the country being the highest in
ASEAN. The article states different factors affecting the inflation in our country. The problem
that was being addressed gives awareness to the Filipino citizens especially to the youths,
consumers, workers and laborers and every career men and women.

It is fairly clear as explained from the article that this issue is not simple knowing that Filipino’s
can be affected so much. One of the author’s suspects of inflation is the World Oil Prices,
because Philippines have no substantial oil production, the country has been one of the biggest
net importers of oil in ASEAN. And also the patently ill-timed of President Duterte’s TRAIN
which includes petroleum tax hikes that also leads to increase of the petroleum prices. Other
factor that contributes to runaway inflation is the Weak Peso. It is said that because we pay
imports in foreign currencies, a weaker peso necessarily makes imports costlier and oil becomes
costlier too, as well as all the other goods and services. And a lot of such imports are raw
materials that are being used in the infrastructure. The biggest and most underappreciated factor
is People’s Expectations of inflation. If people expect inflation in the coming months, workers
and laborers will bargain for higher wages, and firms/businesses or company will also increase
their prices to secure their profits. And the last factor of inflation is the tighter supply of many
agricultural products, notably rice. He said that if there is a crisis/shortage of supply of rice many
producers increase their prices.

The author discussed an important issue pertaining to our Philippine economy. He said that the
President Duterte’s infrastructure push called Build, Build, Build is partly to blame for the
weaker peso. Although he has a point when he said that because we pay imports in foreign
currencies, a weaker peso necessarily makes imports costlier and a lot of such imports are raw
materials like iron and steel that meant for President Duterte’s Build, Build, Build, but we cannot
change the fact that our highways and bridges are way better than before. And a lot of schools
were also built especially in the community that doesn’t have a school and that children would
never have to walk again a distant mile just to go to school. So, because we needed those raw
materials for the improvements and we don’t have the enough supply, we should import. I don’t
think it’s bad at all. And although I agree on what the author stated about the factors of inflation
in the Philippines but base on my opinion I don’t think there is a rice shortage in our supply but
rather the only main problem is the fast increase in prices. According to the experts the problem
is not a global lack of food but rather the problems in the distribution of supply. I think the rice
that should have been in the market are just stocked in the traders storage, waiting for the prices
to increase more before the traders distribute it to markets to secure a big profit.

So therefore, as what the author’s trying to imply we are all still affected by the inflation even if
we have nothing to do about it and even if we don’t like it or not. So for us students, the only
thing that we can do is to study hard so we could get a stable job and we could make our life
better so that we can go with the flow in our country’s fast growing economy.