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The DA started publishing on March 3 a daily cigarette price monitoring report, on top of its regular daily reports on retail prices of agricultural commodities in Metro Manila markets.
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MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) has started monitoring cigarette prices in Metro Manila as part of its expanded mandate under Republic Act 12022 or the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act, marking the first time that the DA is monitoring cigarette prices.
The DA started publishing on March 3 a daily cigarette price monitoring report, on top of its regular daily reports on retail prices of agricultural commodities in Metro Manila markets.
The National Tobacco Administration confirmed to The STAR that the publishing of the daily cigarette reports by the DA is pursuant to RA 12022.
The law mandated the DA through its Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service (AMAS) and the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) to maintain a daily price index (DPI) of all the agricultural and fishery products defined under the law.
RA 12022 expanded the definition of agricultural and fishery products to cover tobacco products, which was previously excluded by the law’s predecessor, RA 10845 or the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act.
Section 6 of RA 12022 emphasized that the DPI must be published on the official websites of AMAS and BAR as well as on their respective social media platforms. AMAS has been handling the price monitoring mandate of the DA and publishes daily reports on the department’s website.
The DA even has an SMS registration system wherein the public will receive free daily messages about its latest price monitoring report.
So far, the daily cigarette monitoring reports have been published six times a week, from Mondays to Saturdays, since March 3.
As of March 13, the DA-AMAS has monitored the prices of 91 cigarette brands or variants across 19 establishments, mostly convenience stores, in Metro Manila.
The cities covered by the monitoring were Marikina, Quezon City, Valuenzuela, Manila, Parañaque, Taguig, Pasay, Navotas, Malabon and Caloocan.
The cigarettes were monitored on a per pack basis with most of them having 20 sticks each. The DA-AMAS monitors the highest, lowest, prevailing and average prices of the cigarette brands.
The most expensive cigarette brand, based on the DA-AMAS’ monitoring, was Chungwa at P365 per pack (20 sticks) while the cheapest ones were Mighty Menthol 100s (Soft Pack) and Winston Original Red (Round Corner Box), both at P91 per pack.
The price monitoring reports play an essential role in determining smuggling and profiteering under RA 12022.
The law indicated that agricultural products sold at 30 percent lower than the DPI must be presumed to be smuggled items while those sold at least 10 percent higher than the DPI during abnormal situations can be considered as profiteering.
