by Joey Natividad,Senior Editor
Change of diet may be resorted to by rural and urban Filipinos as cooking oil has shot up, from 18 pesos per bottle (320ml “miguelito” gin bottle), now at 40 pesos per bottle at the “palengke”, local market.
People will think twice of cooking their favorite fried fish, pancit guisado, fried bananas, fried chicken, and the ordinary vegetable dishes that depend heavily on cooking oil.
Common preference will be soup, or cocido, grilled food, barbeque, steamed, and the like.
“Change of food preferences, daily meal preparations, diet may be observed on the family dining table, opting more for less-oil diet,” says a house wife.
But, this second week of March, cooking oil has climbed up almost to an unaffordable level at 40 pesos per bottle.
Government has found the prohibitive cost of cooking oil as a tasteless issue, not worth for any intervention.
So far, the national government is not yet cooking up any measure to appease the housewife food basket.
Among consumer items, the gradual increases of cooking oil has been dramatically been felt by penny-pinching housewives.
Given the increases earlier on prices of fish, pork, poultry, beef, vegetables and other kitchen-bound items.
In the past, cooking oil is seldom affected by the volatile local “palengke economy”, whose increases were minimal, easily absorbed by market goers.
The increase may go higher, as global forecast, including the government’s, announced another wave of fuel increase this third week of March 2022.
Such fuel cost hike will trigger corresponding increase on prices of commodities, consumer products, and other items.
Experts say the fuel hike is an offshoot by events following the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war.