INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Trade and Industry’s flagship project Diskwento Caravan is set to go around key cities across the country starting on Tuesday to offer to consumers school supplies and basic goods at discounted prices.
In a statement issued on Monday, the DTI said the one-day sale, dubbed as Diskwento Caravan: Balik Eskwela edition, would ease the burden of rising prices of basic necessities and prime commodities as well as school supplies on the consumers, in the weeks leading to class opening.
According to the DTI, a variety of products will be available at Diskwento Caravan, including school supplies, school uniforms, kid’s leather shoes and school bags, canned goods, processed meat, bread, cooking oil and detergent soaps. Local products made by micro, small and medium entrepreneurs will likewise be featured.
Other government agencies will join the Diskwento Caravan to offer frontline services such as the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, National Statistics Office (NSO), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), and Social Security System (SSS).
Separately, Trade Secretary Gregory L. Domingo said in a briefing on Monday that prices of school supplies have remained steady except for the prices of pencils and oil-based crayons. The stable price situation is expected to remain over the next weeks even as the opening of classes draws near.
Several caravans will be held across the country on separate dates until the end of May.
In another development, Domingo also announced that the price of Pinoy Pan de Sal will go down by P1 to P23 per 10-piece pack, weighing 250 grams or 25 grams apiece.
“The cost of flour has gone down so the good news is that the cost of Pinoy Pan DE Sal has gone down to P23 per pack. Two months ago it was P25,” Domingo said.
“We are still convincing bakers to also bring down the cost of Pinoy Tasty but they said they can only do that if the flour millers bring down the cost of flour by at P40 to P60,” he said.
In a separate briefing on Monday, Philippine Baking Industry Group (PhilBaking) director Walter Co said the price reduction would take effect by May 29 this year.
He, however, noted that this price reduction was borne out of “goodwill” on their part, in order to urge local flour millers to bring down the cost of flour. By doing so, Philbaking members will also be able to reduce the prices of Pinoy Tasty and possibly, trigger decreases in the prices of other commercial loaf bread variants as well.
For Co, local flour millers must at least bring down the cost by P40 so Philbaking members will be able to cut the price of Pinoy Tasty by P1 per loaf. Despite Domingo’s declarations of reduced local flour prices at about P820 to P880 per bag, data from the DTI showed that local flour prices still ranged from P870 to as high as P930 per bag.
Co, meanwhile, revealed to reporters that the cost of Indonesian flour being used for the Pinoy Pan De Sal was much lower at P840 per 25-kilogram bag. The Pinoy Tasty, on other hand, uses 100 percent locally milled flour, which is more expensive.
Co added that they could not use Indonesian flour for the loaf bread as this would produce a yellowish color on the bread. Local flour gives the bread whitish color.