BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera office of the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) revealed that the region’s consumer price Index in March this year was 117.4 points compared to the 114.5 points during the same period the previous year which is 2.9 index points higher.
The PS-CAR explained that consumer price index is the general measure of the change in the average retain prices of a market basket or collection of goods and services commonly purchased by the average Filipino household.
Among the provinces, Kalinga posted the highest CPI for Matrch this year with 122.8, followed by Apayao with 121.8, and Ifugao with 118.3 while Mountain Province posted the lowest CPI with 112.4.
In terms of index points change, the PSA-CAR reported that Ifugao incurred the highest increase with 7.5 index change, followed by Apayao with 7.4 index points increase.
On the other hand, among the commodity groups, the PSAC-CAR stated that alcoholic beverages and tobacco hand the highest CPI in the region with 215 wherein Apayao incurred the highest CPI on the said commodity with 335.1 followed by Abra with 269 and Kalinga with 244.4.
According to the PSA-CAR report, education and clothing and footwear registered the second highest CPI among the different commodity groups in the region for March this year with 121.8 index points wherein Kalinga posted the highest index on the said commodity with 121.8 index points followed by Benguet and Mountain Province with 121.6 and 120.5 index points, respectively, while Apayao had the lowest registered CPI on education with 60.9 index points.
Ifugao recorded the highest CPI on clothing and footwear with 125 index points followed by Kalinga and Benguet with 124.4 and 122.4 index points, respectively while Apayao registered the lowest CPI on the same category with 115.7 index points.
Health ranked third with 120.1 index points wherein Benguet and Ifugao recorded the highest CPI on the said commodity both with 125.7 index points followed by Kalinga with 124.8 index points.
On the other hand, communication continued to have the lowest CPI among the commodity groups in the region with 101.5 index points wherein Apayao incurred the highest index points on communication with 105.5 index points while Mountain Province had the lowest with 100.1 index points.
By index points change, alcoholic beverages and tobacco the highest increase by 30.5 points while increases were also incurred in health, 9.3 points; recreation and culture, 4.6 points and clothing and footwear, 4.4 points.
The rest of the commodity groups reported minimal annual increases considering the various factors involved in the determination of the increase established under existing rules and regulations.
By Dexter A. See
