President Marcos pledges to stabilize peso, lower food prices

MANILA – President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Wednesday vowed to defend the Philippine peso and bring down food prices as the currency sank to a record low against the U.S. dollar and inflation continued to squeeze household budgets.

“Do not take it with alarm. Don't panic,” Marcos said in a chance interview in Muntinlupa, attributing the peso’s weakness partly to rising global oil prices and their impact on the economy.

“Our policy towards the peso is to continue to defend the peso as hard as we possibly can,” he said, adding that the government has the tools and resources to protect the currency, citing the country’s healthy foreign exchange reserves.

The peso closed at a record-low PHP64.17 against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday, after breaching the PHP64 level for the first time.

The weakening currency makes imports, including fuel, more expensive, potentially adding to transport, electricity and other household costs.

On rising prices of basic goods, Marcos said the government has more room to intervene in food prices than in global oil costs.

“It's basically oil we can do nothing about. Food, we can,” he said, adding that the administration was doing everything it could to bring food prices down.

He acknowledged that monetary policy alone could not address inflation driven by supply constraints and higher production and import costs.

The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that inflation accelerated to 7.2 percent in September from 6.1 percent in August, driven partly by faster increases in food, transport and housing-related costs. The September rate was the highest since March 2023.