BAGUIO CITY – The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) reported that the inflation rate in the region slowed down to 2.6 percent in April this year compared to the 3.3 percent in the same month during the previous year.
The statistics agency explained that inflation is the reported average increase in the prices of goods and services during a certain period of time pursuant to the indicators established for the said purpose.
Based on the PSA-CAR report, Apayao posted the highest inflation rate in April this year at 6 percent followed by Ifugao at 5.9 percent, and Abra at 4.5 percent.
The PSA-CAR added that the inflation surpassed the April 2018 inflation rate for the provinces of Abra, Apayao, and Ifugao while other provinces had much lower inflation rates in April this year relative to the same month last year.
By commodity group year-on-year, the PSA-CAR pointed out that the inflation rate of the heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages index in the region went down from 1.4 in March this year to 1.3 in April this year.
On the other hand, alcoholic and tobacco had the highest inflation in April this year among other commodities in the region with 17 percent followed by health with 7.8 percent.
Education incurred a negative inflation rate of 1.3 percent compared to the figures that were recorded for the said commodity during the previous year.
By food items year-on-year, the PSA-CAR claimed only fish recorded the highest price increase both in 2018 and 2019 while prices of rice went down to negative 5.2 percent in April this year.
In a related development, the PSA-CAR revealed that the purchasing power of the peso in the region was P0.85 in April this year which was lower by P0.02 from the P0.87 recorded in the same period the previous year.
According to the PSA-CAR, the recorded purchasing power of the peso means that P1 in 2012 is only worth P0.85 in April this year.
Moreover, the PSA-CAR stressed that in other words, a basket of goods that can be bought with P100 in December 2012 is worth P117.4 in April 2019.
The purchasing power of the peso in all the provinces weakened in April this year compared to the same period the previous year.
The PSA-CAR noted that Mountain Province had the highest peso value of P0.88 while Apayao and Kalinga both had the lowest peso value at P0.82.
The PSA-CAR emphasized that purchasing power of the peso measures how much the peso in the reference year is worth in another year while inflation rate is the rate of change in the average price level between two periods, year-on-year, month-on-month, as effectively and efficiently measured by the prevailing consumer price index in a certain area in the country.
The PSA-CAR releases data on the prevailing situation in the region in terms of consumer price index, inflation and purchasing power of the peso to help ascertain the economic standing of the region during a certain period of time.
By Dexter A. See