A LOOMING food crisis would hit this city in the coming weeks if fuel pump prices would continue to rise, officials here said.

Councilor George Goking, chair of the Cagayan de Oro committee on trade and commerce said the City Price Coordinating Council (CPPC) has already monitored that some basic goods especially with cheaper prices have been “withdrawn” from the grocery shelves of some malls in the city.

“This is only the beginning. It would worsen in the next few weeks if the fuel prices continue to spike,” Goking said.

On Tuesday, gas firms Shell, Caltex, Seaoil, and Clean fuel hiked their fuel pump prices by as much as P2.70 per liter for gasoline and P6.55 per liter for diesel

Goking said mall owners have withdrawn some of the basic goods because they knew the prices would go up for these items in the coming months.

“Last Tuesday’s increase and the weekly fuel pump hikes would trigger inflation and will severely impact the economy of Cagayan de Oro,” he said.

Goking said urea prices for farmers in nearby Bukidnon province, the food source for Cagayan de Oro, have increased from P850 per bag to P3,200 a bag in the past months along with other farm inputs that are petroleum-based.

He said yet the farm gate prices for palay remained at P14 to 16 a kilo.

“Many farmers are now saying they are downsizing the areas they plant by fifty percent. If this happens, food shortage in the city can happen,” Goking said.

Goking said workers would also suffer despite the decision by the National Wages and Productivity Commission to grant a P27 daily wage increase.

The National Wages and Productivity Commission said the P27 wage increase would bring the minimum wage to P365 a day for workers and P353 a day for agricultural workers in Northern Mindanao.

Raymond Mendoza, president of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines said the weekly fuel pump hikes would weaken the buying power of the minimum wage increase granted by the NWPC.

“Because of extraordinary inflation, the series of wage increase orders issued by the wage boards failed to restore the purchasing power of wages and it didn’t uplift workers’ purchasing power above poverty threshold wage level,” Mendoza said in a statement.