GUIMARAS – This island province’s inflation rate eased to 2.7% at the beginning of 2025 against 2.8% in December 2024 and 4.6 percent inflation in January 2024, which is 1.9 percentage points slower, based on the latest price data released by the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA).
“The downtrend in the inflation in January 2025 was primarily influenced by the slower rate of change on the year-on-year price changes in the heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages at 4.2 percent during the month, from 4.6 percent in December 2024,” Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare said.
She added: “The slower annual price change on health at -0.4 percent in January 2025 from 2.7 percent in the previous month and recreation, sport and culture at 4.1 percent from 5.7 percent a month ago also contributed to the sluggish overall inflation.”
Food and non-alcoholic beverages shared 65.3 percent to the downtrend of January inflation, while health, and recreation, sport and culture spliced 29.4 and 2.9 percent respectively.
Likewise, the slow-moving inflation rate was also noted in the other two commodity groups: clothing and footwear, at 0.3 percent in January 2025 from 2.4 percent in December 2024; and Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Household Maintenance at -0.5 percent from -0.3 percent.
In contrast, the following were the items with faster inflation in January:
* alcoholic beverages and tobacco – 4.6 percent
* transport – 2.4 percent
* personal care, and miscellaneous goods and services – 1.7 percent.
While the other five commodities retained their previous month’s inflation rate (housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels: 2.6 percent, information and communication: 3.3 percent, education services: 0.0 percent, restaurants and accommodation services: -5.7 percent, and financial services; 0.0 percent).
Meanwhile, in January 2025, the overall inflation rate in Guimaras was primarily influenced by three major commodity groups: food and non-alcoholic beverages at 75.4 percent or 2.04 percentage points; housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels at 14.8 percent share; and transportation at 6.0 percent.
“The inflation rate is the rate of change in the consumer price index (CPI) derived by computing the indices relative to the same period in the previous year or month, and currently, Guimaras posted a 134.6 CPI, translating that a typical Guimarasnon household needs 1,346.00 pesos in January 2025 to purchase a basket of goods and services worth 1000 pesos in 2018,” Losare clarified.
She added: “The Purchasing Power of the Peso (PPP) in Guimaras dropped to 0.74 in January 2024. This indicates that one peso in 2018 is now worth 0.74 centavos, recording a devaluation 0.01 from 0.75 PPP in December 2024. PPP in January 2024 was at 0.76 centavos.”/PN
