MANILA, Philippine – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. held his first Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, July 5, then held a press conference about what was discussed a few hours later.

Reporters asked him about how he’ll address high prices of fuel and food driving inflation, pegged by the Philippine Statistics Authority to reach 6.1% in June.

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In response, Marcos said his Cabinet is mulling more fuel subsidies for tricycle drivers. The Duterte administration had implemented such a program, announcing in late June it was set to give fuel cash subsidy to over 600,000 tricycle drivers nationwide.

Marcos said government funds could be sufficient to provide such subsidies in 2022 at least, but that new funding sources would have to be identified for beyond that.

Another way his government would alleviate the financial burden of commuters is to continue the free rides on the MRT3 line. However, Marcos said this would eventually be “phased out” because of high costs of such a program. Instead, free rides would be more targeted. As his transportation secretary announced, the Marcos government will allow all students to ride the LRT2, MRT3, and PNR for free from August to November, or the first quarter of the upcoming school year.

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What about food prices?

As for higher prices of staples like corn, pork, chicken, and more, Marcos said increasing local production of such commodities is his priority. He then recounted his meeting with Department of Agriculture officials on Monday. He reiterated that the reason he decided to serve as concurrent agriculture secretary is to focus on the problem of expensive food.

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Specifically on pork, Marcos said importing this product cannot be avoided given the African swine fever still affecting the local pork industry.

Increasing production of corn, which is used as feeds for livestock and poultry, could help decrease costs of pork and chicken. – Rappler.com