President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Tuesday said he wanted an explanation as to why egg prices have reached “unreasonable” prices despite sufficient supply.
In a Cabinet meeting, Marcos Jr. ordered Agriculture Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban to meet with egg producers and traders to determine the cause of the price surge.
“We determined that the increase in the price of eggs is not commensurate to the increase in production cost,” the president said.
“So we will have to have a look to see how to control that because we cannot explain almost one-half of the profit margin that we are seeing. We cannot attribute it to cost,” he added.
Based on the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) price watch as of Jan. 13, medium-sized eggs retail at P9 each, compared to P6.90 in December 2022.
The DA said eggs should just be priced between P7 to P7.50 per piece considering farmgate prices.
In its report to Malacañang, the DA said the farmgate price of medium chicken eggs was at P6.97 per piece.
According to some reports, eggs are being sold for as much as P9.60 in some markets. John Ezekiel J. Hirro