BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera office of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) stated that the region’s inflation rate or the average increase in the prices of goods and services accelerated to 4.1 percent in July this year.
Based on the data obtained from the agency, Apayao and Kalinga posted the highest inflation rate both at 6 percent followed by Ifugao at 4.4 percent.
Further, the PSA-CAR claimed that inflation rate in all the provinces surpassed the July 2017 rates that had lower inflation in July this year relative to the same month last year.
On the other hand, year-on-year inflation rate of the heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages index in the region accelerated to 4.6 percent from 4.3 percent in the previous month while alcoholic beverages and tobacco had the highest inflation among other commodities in the region with 19.2 percent, followed by transport with 6.5 percent.
Inflation rates for transport and communication were the same last month while vegetables are pegged at 17.1, corn at 10.5 and meat at 5.2 percent. The said commodities persisted to be the top three commodities with the highest increases.
Consequently, fruits reportedly incurred a negative inflation rate of 0.1 percent in July this year.
The PSA-CAR explained that inflation rate is the reported change in the average price level between two periods year-on-year or month-on-month as measured by the region’s prevailing consumer price index.
The CPI was re-based to 2012 as the base year from the current 2006 base year. The year 2012 was chosen as the next base year because it was the latest year when the family income and expenditure survey results were made available and that it is also the synchronized re-basing of the price indices to base year 2006 and every six years thereafter.
The PSA-CAR added that base year is the reference point of the index number series at which the index number is set to 100 and it is the reference point of the index number series.
The statistics agency makes it a point to periodically release data pertinent to consumer price index to guide policy-makers and decision-makers in the crafting of programs, policies and projects vital in ensuring the affordability of basic commodities in the market beneficial to the general welfare of the public.
By Dexter A. See
