The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is studying the request of the largest food manufacturers group to review the standard retail price (SRP) of basic commodities.

"They should submit justification if there is a high increase in the cost of their items," Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said during the ''Laging Handa'' virtual public briefing on Friday.

"This is continuously being studied by our Consumer Policy Advocacy Bureau (CPAB) of DTI. We have a formula to compute that and the changes in the prices of cost items, were based there, the changes in the prices of the cost items," he added.

Lopez said the DTI is also negotiating with companies to minimize a possible increase in the prices.

"As representative of the consumer, we temper whatever the price will be as a result of mga cost increases and we negotiate that with the company to minimize if ever there will be an increase," he said.

"That is what we do in the past years. We temper as a representative of consumers so that the increase on the price of the cost items will not be too high," he added. Robina Asido/DMS