The Department of Trade and Industry revealed that six food manufacturers have already inhibited their requests for price adjustments for their products until the end of the year, hoping that other manufacturers will follow suit.

"They have already withdrawn the price increase request, and there are six (food manufacturing companies). It influenced other manufacturers and they came to a consensus to temporarily hold the price increase until the end of the year," Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual said in a press conference on Wednesday.

Products with no price hikes

He said the products that will not have price increases until December this year are bottled water, candles, condiments, bread and toilet soap.

"We have a meeting with canned sardine manufacturers tomorrow (5 October) because we continue to appeal to them to hold their price increase request," Pascual said.

Pascual said some manufacturers with a wide range of varieties of products have the flexibility to sacrifice profits in some of their low-cost products, while they make recovery on their premium products.

Rounding up

Further, he said the DTI will not release a new suggested retail price for basic necessities and prime commodities until December 2023.

Instead, the agency is contemplating rounding off the cents that are in the prices of the current SRP, emulating the price-rounding mechanism of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas which is aimed at diminishing the proliferation of 25, 10 and 5 cents in the market.

"For example, if the current SRP of sardines is at P19.46, we will round it up and we will make it P19.50, a price adjustment of .4 cents. We are studying this scheme," Pascual explained.

Price rounding refers to the policy and/or practice of rounding off the amount due for payment, as opposed to charging the exact amount to the last centavo.

The actual cash payment would be rounded up or down to the nearest multiple of the designated coin currency unit under the policy.

Across countries, price rounding is implemented in various ways, such as through mutual consent of consumers and retailers, or through a binding legislative act.