GUIMARAS – The inflation rate in this island province for August slackened to 3.4 percent, slower by 0.3 percentage points from the August 2020 rate of 3.7 percent, pulled down by the slower price movements on four commodity group items.
The August 2021 inflation was 0.8 percentage points lower from the 4.2 percent annual rate of change in July this year, the result of the Retail Prices Survey (RPS) conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.
This meant that the prices of goods purchased in August of this year were 3.4 percent lower than the prices of products purchased in August 2020 and in July 2021, said Provincial Statistics Officer, Nelida Losare.
The slower inflation rates in August 2021 were due to the decreased prices of alcoholic beverages and tobacco (16.6), clothing and footwear (3.1%), housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels
(-1.7%), and health at (1.9%).
Alcoholic beverages and tobacco decreased by 4.0 percentage points from 20.6 inflation in August 2020 to 16.6 in August 2021, mainly pushed by the slower price index of tobacco.
“The clothing and footwear commodity group dropped by 0.2 percentage points from 3.3 inflation in August 2020 to 3.1 in August 2021, due to the 10.5% decrement on the price changes of clothing,” Losare said.
Only one commodity group deflated in August 2021: the housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels with a -1.7% rate, pulled down by the price change of actual rentals for housing (-1.3%) and other fuels with -3.2%.
Furthermore, the slower inflation of electricity, gas and other fuels which dropped to -3.2 percent, and actual rentals which goes down to -1.3% pushed the commodity of housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels rate to step down at -1.7% in August 2021 from 5.4% in August 2020.
On the contrary, seven of the commodity group items moved at a faster rate of change in August 2021 over the same month a year ago, namely:
* Food and non-alcoholic beverages, 2.9% from 0.5%
* Furnishing, Household Equipment, and Routine Maintenance of the House, 4.4% from 2.5%
* Transport, 16.4% from 5.9%
* Communication, 0.1% from 0.0%
* Recreation and Culture, 0.6% from -0.9%
* Education, 5.1% from 0.0%
* Restaurant and Miscellaneous goods and services, 9.6% from 3.5%.
The commodities were monitored by the PSA during the Retail Prices Survey (RPS) for August 2021 with an index of 129.5, which meant that an average Guimarasnon household needed P29.5 more in August 2021 to buy a basket of goods worth P100 in 2012.
Looking at the August year-on-year inflation rate throughout the nine consecutive years, the year 2018 had the fastest rate of 7.2%, and August 2015 had the slowest rate of -1.6%. The August inflation rates from 2013 until 2021 moved at a random and unpredictable pattern.
From -1.6% rate in 2015, inflation soared to 4.4% in 2016, suddenly it went down to 1.6%, and finally jumped reaching a peak of 7.2% or an increment of 5.6 percentage points and decreased by 4.9 percentage points in 2019, which recorded a rate of 2.3%, from then, the rate of price change slowed until it settled at 3.4% in August 2021./PN
