Worsening economic situation being felt in RP

Expect prices of NFA rice to rise from the present 18 pesos per kilo to about 33 pesos. NFA is currently thinking of hiking the price of NFA rice to curb an expected 39 billion peso loss due to subsidizing the precious staple. A rice price hike would surely mess up the market prices particularly of commercial rice which is being retailed at prices between 39 to 60 pesos per kilo. If this plan pushes through, how will the poor cope up with this?

Also, analysts are predicting that the peso will breach the 50 peso per dollar mark before the year ends. That's good news for OFW's but bad news for business. Companies who rely on imported products may have to fork out more pesos to buy their stuff. Surely, that would impact on inflation, as generally companies would put the extra expense to consumers. Again, the domino effect--higher prices means higher inflation which may put a damper to the efforts being made to at least make the economic environment viable as an investment site.

Lastly, I'm seeing a noticeable decrease in local tourism due to the worsening economic situation. People are cutting back on travel expenses due to higher transpo and gas prices. Malls are benefitting from the cutbacks since people are milling to malls more than usual. The impact is obvious--lower tourism revenues mean decrease in government funds. Possible net effect--loss of jobs and bankruptcy among resorts and tourist-related industries.