Survival, Pinoy Style
abs-cbnnews.com | 06/23/2008 1:43 AM
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By Purple S. Romero
Abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak
She may be one of the toughest crusaders against flagrant deceptive sales practices and dubious products, but when it comes to rising prices, even Atty. Zenaida Reyes, president of the Consumer Federated Group of the Philippines, has to learn how to roll with the economic punches.
“I do not buy meat in the supermarkets anymore. I go to wet markets such as Nepa-Q Mart [in Quezon City] and Farmers [in Cubao] to buy pork and fish. What you can buy at the supermarket for P175 would only cost P150 in the palengke (wet market),” she told abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak.
As succeeding rounds of oil price hikes hit the country and double digit inflation rates loom, Reyes and the millions of Filipino consumers have to scrimp on expenses to survive shaky price movements amid burgeoning poverty.
Oil prices have increased 16 times already this year—and counting, as pump prices hike by P1 to P1.50 almost every weekend. Meanwhile, the year-on-year inflation rate in April jumped from an average of 2.8 percent in 2007 to 9.6 percent this year, pushing the purchasing power of the peso at a downward spiral from 0.71 percent in 2007 to 0.68 percent in 2008.
While prices escalated, the number of jobless Filipinos also swelled to 2.9 million according to the latest Labor Force Survey of the National Statistics Office. The unemployment rate shot up to 8.0 percent in April this year from 7.4 percent in the same period last year.
On the other hand, the depreciation of the dollar caused a financial headache among families of over eight million overseas Filipino workers when the peso value of their remittances was sliding early this year.
But the budgeting challenges brought by skyrocketing prices and limited economic opportunities are not new to the Filipinos. They could tighten the proverbial belt, and how.
Back to basics
Ballooning global oil prices and the rice scarcity have put a dent on the pockets of the Filipino consumers. In early June this year, oil hit the $138 per barrel mark. The price is expected—and feared—to reach $200 per barrel by 2010.
The latest oil price spike spurred a P1.50 surge in the local prices of gasoline, diesel and kerosene. Average retail price of unleaded gasoline is now P56.46 a liter, diesel P49.44, while 11 kilograms of liquefied petroleum gasoline or LPG is sold from P615 to P661.
The rising fuel costs made Zenaida Marata’s son buy a scooter for his transportation to work, even if they have a family car. “He told me that, if he uses a scooter, P200 could buy him enough fuel for a week. When he drives our car to go to work, that P200 is good only for a day,” she said.
Marata’s family lives on the P29,000 that her husband, a seaman, sends home every month. Both of her two children have graduated already, and one is already employed. Her son pitches in for food expenses in the house. They have their own bungalow and car. They have a maid and would be hiring another one by the end of June.
But enter Marata’s kitchen and what greets your eyes is an old-fashioned stove and two sacks of coal. They have a gas stove, but Marata said that she only uses it now for cooking quick meals.
While motorists complain of high gasoline and diesel prices, Marata—like most Filipino mothers nowadays—feels the price bumps the most when she purchases LPG. That’s why she switched to coal from LPG for her cooking needs. “How much is an LPG? That’s P600. A sack of coal only costs P160,” she said.
Estella Montalbo, another home maker, uses wood to cook the family’s meals to save up on fuel expenses. Montalbo lives in the same neighborhood as Marata. The two said that they may use coal and firewood for cooking on a long-term basis.
Recycling food
Switching to other types of fuel is not the only way to cut LPG use, Pinoy home makers find. One can also save by “recycling” food.
For Susana Valdez, a mother of three, this means preparing enough viand during breakfast time to last her family until lunch. All she needs to do is reheat the food. “Less cooking means less LPG use,” Valdez explained.
On the other hand, Marata whips up a ‘new’ meal from a half-day old food by just adding tomato sauce or vegetables and again, re-heating it.
Recycling food hits two birds with one stone. LPG use is reduced, while food expenses are cut because fewer ingredients are needed. When prices of food rose due to increased energy costs, Valdez put more vegetables in the menu and cut back on consuming meat.
Another housewife, Gloria Estanislao sees to it that they always have eggs, so that even if they do not have meat to cook, they still have something to put on the table.
On the other hand, a vegetable recipe such as “ginataang santol,”or laing (vegetable dish with coconut mill) could last for two weeks in the Montalbo household. Montalbo does not spend much on food even if she has eight mouths to feed because she grows vegetables in their backyard.
Marata and her husband have also started planting more greens in their garden. Their harvests include calamansi (local lime) and pechay.
While they feel the economic pinch, the Valdez, Montalbo and Marata families are faring better than many others.
Other families go through extra lengths to make ends meet. Among them is the family of Glenn Bassig, a housewife from barangay Bagong Silang, Caloocan City’s most poverty-stricken communities. Bassig’s husband works in road constructions on a contractual basis and earns only P6,000 a month.
To stretch this, she joins the throng of shoppers in a nearby market at 3 am to buy half a kilo of bangus, the “smallest kind,” she said, which costs P30. She salts and bakes half of the fish under the sun so that in the afternoon, they could have daing. The other half, she would fry in the morning. By night, she would simmer them in water and vinegar to come up with instant pangat.
The fish and rice is often not enough for couple and their brood of five. Thus there are times when Bassig and her husband do not eat supper anymore. “We just give whatever’s left in the table to our kids,” she said.
Meat price to rise
Government data show that prices of meat in Metro Manila have not actually gone up significantly since the beginning of the year amid high inflation rates. The price of beef stayed put at P180-P220, while pork did not budge from P180. The price of chicken rose only this June at P120 from P110 in the last five months.
Businessmen from the meat industry said that the storage of meat in the last 2-3 months cushioned the blow of rising food prices.
On the other hand, prices for fish were unstable—generally hovering from P80 to P120. Galunggong is truly a poor man’s fish no more. At P100 a kilo, it eclipsed bangus (milk fish), priced at P80.
However, the forecast for prices of meat in the upcoming months is not as peachy, as prices of imported beef have already increased. Beef from Brazil surged from $2.30 per kilo last January to $2.50 per kilo this June.
The Philippines is heavily dependent on imported meat from other countries such as India, Brazil, Egypt and other parts of the Middle East.
Not giving up rice
But it is the price of rice which has scaled up tremendously and mostly during the past five months, following volatile supply-and-demand movements in the world market. Tight supplies pushed major rice exporters Vietnam and Thailand to limit exports, leaving hard-up rice importers such as the Philippines and the United States to scrounge for and secure grains already for the next year.
Locally, the price of rice fancy has increased to P45 in Metro Manila from P40 in the first week of June, and went as high as P47 in Cotabato City. NFA rice stayed at P18.25 for most regions, but increased to P25 in ARMM.
But prices of fancy rice are not altogether wobbly, as increases have only registered this June. Last May, the price of fancy rice even went down in Metro Manila by five pesos and by seven pesos in Baguio City.
However, the same could not be said for premium rice and regular-and well milled rice, whose prices have soared almost weekly. Premium rice has even surpassed the price of fancy rice in the first week of June in Kidapawan City, reaching P48.00 a kilo.
Amid the surging prices of rice, most Filipinos are still unwilling to cut back on rice consumption and switch to other substitute crops. Montalbo and Marata are all too willing to buy fancy rice or premium rice because “it is rice.”
“When you buy the cheaper kind, chances are it would spoil easily so might as well buy expensive rice,” Montalbo explained.
Young income earners
Even young income earners who have no families of their own to support are feeling the economic brunt.
Michael Agustin, Liezel Salonga, Jennifer De Jesus, Flaminiano Olivares and Michael Pajares are 22-23 year-old call center agents in Alabang. They earn around P15,000 to P18,000 a month, higher than the usual income of people their age.
But with the rising cost of basic utilities such as water and electricity eating up a major portion of their salaries, they too are cutting their spending habits. For instance, Salonga, who has a car, has decided to commute to work instead to reduce her transportation expenses.
On the other hand, De Jesus does not anymore use the air-conditioning system in her apartment to lower electricity rates.
Because vegetables are cheaper than meat, they are opting for a greener diet. They are also cutting back on dining out to save money.
New clothes are purchased either on sale or in ukay-ukay, thrift shops. And when they go out to buy something in the groceries, they keep a list of the items they need, and stick to that list as much as possible, to avoid excessive buying.
Smiling troubles away
In the latest Consumer Expectations Survey of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the consumer confidence index plunged to 43.8 percent as consumers experience the brunt of rising food and fuel prices. Results of the Nielsen Consumers Confidence, Concerns and Spending Survey reflected the same sentiment, as the Philippines’ consumer confidence plummeted nine points in the first half of 2008.
The drop in the consumer confidence index means that Filipinos would not likely buy durables such as properties, cars and appliances in the next twelve months.
However, while the above may fall low on the consumers’ list of priorities, there are some things that Filipinos just could not forgo amid rising costs, such as recreation and fun.
Estanislao and her family have not gone to the cinema for more than six months already, but they still catch the latest flicks by buying pirated DVDs and VCDs. Also, her son just installs games in their computer so that they could play in their house instead of going to computer shops.
On the other hand, when she does her groceries, Valdez also goes window shopping. “I do not buy anything but just looking around at different shops is recreation for me already,” she said.
Montalbo’s family watches movies once a month, but most of the time they “just watch soap operas and basketball games together. That’s how we spend our family time,” she said.
But Valdez added that one of the simplest – and most effective ways – to relax amid the financial woes is – no surprise here – to have a good laugh with loved ones and friends as often as possible. “We’re Pinoys. We survive by staying happy however hard life may get,” she said.
