BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera office of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) disclosed consumer price index in the Cordillera in March this year was pegged at 143.6, higher by 2.5 index points compared to the 141.1 consumer price index (CPI) during the same period last year.
CPI is the general measure of the change in the average retail prices of the market basket or collection of goods and services commonly purchased by the average Filipino household.
The PSA-CAR noted, in general, the CPI increased reflecting the rise in the average prices of goods and services in all the six provinces of the Cordillera.
Among the CAR provinces, Mountain Province posted the highest CPI for March this year at 152.8, followed by Ifugao at 151.9, and Benguet at 144.4 while Apayao posted the lowest CPI at 132.0.
In terms of index point change, the PSA-CAR reported Ifugao incurred the highest increase at 4.7 points, while Apayao decreased at 0.1 index points.
By index point change, alcoholic beverages and tobacco recorded the highest which increased by 14.6 points. Increases were also noted for clothing and footwear at 4.8 points, housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels at 4.2 points, and transport at 3.4 points.
The PSA-CAR claimed the rest of the commodity groups reported a minimal annual increase in their index points
On the other hand, the PSA-CAR added prices of goods and services in the region decelerated by 1.8 percent in March this year and Ifugao posted the highest inflation rate at 3.2 percent followed by Kalinga at 2.9 percent, and Mountain Province and Abra both at 1.7 percent.
The PSA-CAR explained inflation this year surpassed last year’s rates for the province of Benguet, while other provinces had lower inflation rates this year as compared to the same month last year.
By commodity group year on year, the PSA-CAR cited the growth of the heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages index in the region decreased by 0.8 percent as compared to 2.3 percent from the previous month.
It added alcoholic and tobacco registered the highest inflation rate among other commodities in the region with 7.5 percent increase, followed by clothing and footwear at 3.7 percent.
According to the report, inflation rate on communication, education and restaurants and miscellaneous goods and services remained at 0.2 and 1.5 percent.
By food items year on year, the PSA-CAR reported that milk, cheese, and eggs were at 2.2 percent; sugar, jam, honey, chocolate, and confectionery were also at 2.2 percent and corn was at 2.1 percent and the same persisted in having the highest price increases in March 2017.
In a related development, the PSA-CAR stipulated fruits and food products not elsewhere classified remained to have negative inflation rates of 0.8 and 6.0 percent, respectively.
The PSA-CAR also reported that the value of the peso in the region decreased by 1 centavo from P0.71 in March 2016 to P0.70 in March this year.
By HENT
