GUIMARAS – The headline inflation rate in Guimaras province climbed to 5.1 percent in June 2026, up from 4.7 percent in May and a mere 0.5 percent in June 2025. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), this brings the province’s year-to-date average inflation for January to June this year to 2.6 percent.
Despite the upward trend, Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare noted that Guimaras’ inflation remains lower that both national and Western Visayas regional averages.
PSA said the main drivers of the faster inflation in June were food and non-alcoholic beverages, restaurants and accommodation services, and education services.
Food and non-alcoholic beverages posted 4.2 percent in inflation rate, accounting for 77.3 percent of the month’s headline inflation. This was followed by restaurants and accommodation services, which registered 2.6 percent inflation and contributed 7.0 percent, and education services, which posted 2.0 percent inflation and accounted for 5.0 percent of the overall increase.
Within this commodity group, rice and other cereal products contributed the largest share at 47.6 percent, recording a 7.7 percent inflation rate compared to the 5.2 percent logged in May. Fish and other seafood followed with an 8.3 percent inflation rate, while vegetables and tubers registered a 20.1 percent inflation rate.
Meanwhile, the transport sector was the second-largest contributor to the June headline inflation, representing 35.4 percent of the overall increase. This was primarily driven by passenger transport services, particularly passenger transport by sea and inland waterway, which recorded a 27.7 percent inflation rate, alongside a 28.2 percent increase in the cost of personal transport fuels, particularly gasoline.
Alcoholic beverages and tobacco ranked as the third-largest contributor, representing 6.6 percent of the overall inflation, driven by an 8.5 percent inflation rate for cigarettes and a 5.6 percent rate for spirits and liquors.
Rebounding costs were also observed in education services, which recorded a 2.0 percent inflation rate, reversing the -0.8 percent deflationary rate recorded in May. This was led by secondary education costs, which posted a 5.4 percent inflation rate in June.
In contrast, price slowdowns were observed in several sectors, including health, which dropped to 5.4 percent from 6.3 percent in May; housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels, which eased to 0.9 percent from 1.3 percent; and transport, which decelerated to 24.9 percent from 27.5 percent.
The province’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) reached 139.4 in June, meaning that a basket of goods and services valued at P1,000 in the 2018 base year now costs approximately P1,394. Meanwhile, the purchasing power of the peso in Guimaras remained unchanged from May at P0.72./PN
