BAGUIO CITY May 22 – The Cordillera office of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) reported that the consumer price index in the region in April this year was 117.7 points which was higher by 3 points from the 114.7 consumer price index in April 2018 using 2012 as the base year.
The PSA-Car explained that consumer price index is the general measure of the change in the average retail prices of a market basket or collection of goods and services commonly purchased by the average Filipino household.
The agency stated that the CPI increased reflecting the rise in the average prices of goods and services in all the 6 provinces of the Cordillera with Kalinga posting the highest CPI for April this year at 122.1, followed by Apayao at 121.6, and Benguet at 118.2 while Mountain Province posted the lowest CPI at 113.
In terms of index points change, Apayao incurred the highest increase at 6.9 index points followed by Ifugao and Abra with 6.5 points and 5 points increases, respectively.
Among the commodity groups, alcoholic beverages and tobacco had the highest CPI in the region with 216.9 wherein Apayao incurred the highest CPI on the said commodity with 334.4, followed by Abra, Kalinga, and Ifugao at 278.5, 244.7 and 209.5, respectively.
Further, clothing and footwear registered the second highest CPI among the commodity groups in the region for April this year at 122.1 index points wherein Ifugao had the highest index on clothing and footwear at 125.5 while Apayao had the least at 115.8.
Education ranked third at 121.8 index points wherein Kalinga recorded the highest index points on education at 179.1 followed by Benguet and Mountain Province at 121.6 and 120.5 points, respectively.
The PSA-CAR stated that communication continues to have the lowest CPI among the commodity groups in the region with 101.4 index points with Apayao incurring the highest index on communication with 105.5 index points while Mountain Province had the lowest with 100.1 index points.
Among the Cordillera provinces, Kalinga incurred the highest CPI for all items with 122.1, while Mountain Province garnered the least index at 113 in April this year.
By index points change, alcoholic beverages and tobacco recorded the highest increase by 31.5 points while increases were also incurred in health – 8.7 points, recreation and culture – 4.7 points, and clothing and footwear – 4.6 points and that the rest of the commodity groups reported minimal annual increases.
The PSA-CAR defined market basket as a sample of goods and services used to represent all goods and services produced or bought by the consumers while base year refers to the reference point of the index number series, at which the index number is set to 100.
Further, the base year serves as the reference point of the index number series and that the CPI has been re-based to 2012 from the previous 20006 base year.
The PSA-CAR stipulated that 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. It is also the synchronized re-basing of the price indices to base year 2006 and every 6 years thereafter. By HENT