CONSUMERS may soon find dwindling stocks of basic goods in supermarkets, as some major retailers will be pulling out items which the government requires to be sold at lower prices in light of recent calamities, an industry group warned on Friday.

Store owners would rather return inventories of rice, canned goods, powdered milk, batteries, laundry soap and condiments to manufacturers rather than sell them at a loss or risk being charged with violations, officials of the Philippine Association of Supermarkets, Inc. (PASI) said at an emergency meeting.

Suppliers present at the meeting said they were open to taking back the stocks as they cannot lower their selling price as well.

‘If you find items that are below cost, you pull them out and return them to suppliers. That is our position. Complying with the price control is impossible,’ PASI President Carlos V. Cabochan advised group members at the meeting.

This comes as the government pegged price ceilings to the three-month average of the covered goods, which PASI argued is lower than the actual purchase cost of certain goods.

The group counts as members major supermarkets like Shopwise, Robinsons and Unimart.

SM Hypermarket, which is not a member of PASI, said it has no plans to pull out stocks from shelves just yet. ‘As of now, we are complying with all [Trade department-imposed] prices,’ SM Hypermarket Executive Vice-President Robert Kwee said in a text message on Friday.

PASI Director Emmanuel Enciso, went on to complain that the implementation of the price control is problematic, on top of the too-low prices. ‘[The government] adds new goods to the price control list at their whim. They will change the price of the same good everyday. What government is doing is out of whack [sic]. There is no sanity here,’ Mr. Enciso said at the meeting. ‘In the end, it will be the consumer that will suffer as we pull out products.’

University of the Philippines economist Benjamin E. Diokno had already foreseen this outcome, saying in a text message on Thursday that price control schemes result only in ’empty grocery shelves.’ The poor will be worst hit, as more affluent consumers clear the stores of the limited supplies, he said.

Meanwhile, suppliers of canned goods, soap, and batteries that attended the meeting backed Mr. Cabochan’s proposal to pull out underpriced stocks from store shelves.

Supply ‘holiday’

‘We as manufacturers cannot agree to accept the burden of this because the goods are out, they’ve been delivered. Maybe we can go on inventory holiday,’ said Francisco J. Buencamino, executive director of the Philippine Association of Meat Processors, Inc.

Representatives of soap maker Peerless Products, Inc. and battery firm Energizer Philippines concurred.

‘In our case, we have various regions with prices set lower than standard retail price. Our suggestion is to pull out [stocks] if there are price problems,’ said Esteban Vorbeeck, Energizer managing director.

This arrangement, however, is bound to hurt producers’ margins in the long run, since inventory will not be sold, said Martin R. Tupaz, Peerless Products head of modern trade sales.

Sought for comment, the Trade department said it is merely implementing the law as stated. Republic Act 7581 provides that the price ceiling for covered goods should be placed at the three-month average, even as this may be lower that the prevailing price before the government declares a state of calamity.

Seventy-two stores have been charged with violations as of Thursday, latest data from the Trade department show.

‘There should be no confusion. The law is clear. Everybody just has to comply. If we take into account all their input, it defeats the purpose of the law. It can’t be business as usual,’ Trade Assistant Secretary Angel L. Pelayo said in a telephone interview on Friday. ‘The law is not about business. It is about consumers.’

Asked to comment on PASI charges that the scheme will eventually hurt consumers when stores refuse to sell underpriced goods, Ms. Pelayo said: ‘That is upon their own discretion [sic]. In our economy, there’s competition, so consumers will just move to another store with the supplies.’