MANILA - President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said he disagreed with the 6.1 percent inflation rate in June that the state statistics bureau reported on Tuesday, and added that much of the country's inflation was "imported."
During his first press briefing since his inauguration as the Philippines’ 17th president, Marcos was asked what he planned to do to address rising prices.
In response, the president said inflation was “a problem not only in the Philippines but everywhere.”
However, Marcos also said that he “disagreed” with the reported inflation level.
“I think that I will have to… I will have to disagree with that number. We are not that high. We have crossed the .. our targets were less 4 percent or less, unfortunately, it looks like we may cross that… cross that threshold. Tatawid tayo sa 4 percent,” Marcos said.
The Philippine Statistics Authority released its report on Tuesday morning, which showed that headline inflation continued to rise, hitting 6.1 percent in June after hitting 5.4 percent in May and 4.9 percent in April.
During his briefing, Marcos again said that there was little that the country could do about rising commodity prices.
“The increase in commodity prices are... again something that happens, that the forces, the forces that have pushed the commodity prices up, are again beyond our control,” the president said.
The chief executive also said inflation in the country was “imported.”
“Much of our inflation is actually imported inflation. It is imported because it is the inflation on the products that have suffered inflation that we import. So sumama na yung inflation nila dun sa atin.”
National Statistician Dennis Mapa earlier reported that the main contributors to inflation were rising prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, transport costs and fuel prices.
Undersecretary Mapa said that prices are also likely to keep rising based on the data they have gathered.