THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Thursday urged consumer-linked agencies to enforce the price-tag law with vigor to help moderate the incidence of unwarranted price increases in the wake of a series of calamities hitting Metro Manila and outlying provinces.

The BSP issued the call at it announced it has kept its policy rates unchanged at 4 percent for borrowing and 6 percent for lending.

These are the rates at which it borrows from or lends to banks, rates that also help anchor interest on loans extended by banks and financial institutions to corporations and households.

As soon as BSP Governor Amando  Tetangco Jr. announced that monetary authorities had kept the policy rates steady, BSP Deputy Governor Diwa  Guinigundo said the decision will have more meaning to millions of Filipino consumers if “nonmonetary measures” were implemented as well.

“By nonmonetary is meant timely importation of rice or meat products, if necessary. Appropriate agencies should also enforce the price-tag law to make sure people do not take advantage of the situation,” Guinigundo said.

He cited anecdotal reports on unwarranted price increases on key consumer items that made life more difficult for calamity-stricken consumers in Metro Manila and outlying provinces.

His boss, Tetangco, had reported that inflation pushed higher as expected in October to average 1.6 percent from only 0.7 percent in September.

“As expected, the uptick was primarily due to supply pressures in agricultural products brought about by the recent typhoons. We expect this to be largely temporary with the underlying near-term trend remaining manageable,” Tetangco said in an earlier text message.

According to Tetangco, inflation, or the rate of change in prices, will continue to fall within forecast this year averaging 3.28 percent.

This is lower than actual 10-month inflation thus far averaging 3.4 percent this year.

Guinigundo also said the controversial price cap on oil products should have “no effect on inflation this year” despite the controversy the issue has generated.

“Even if oil product prices were significantly different from what see today, we will continue to keep inflation targets for 2009 and 2010. The impact of such increases should only be temporary shocks,” Guinigundo said.   

Inflation was seen averaging from 3.5 percent up to 5.5 percent next year, based on BSP forecasting models.