GUIMARAS – This province’s inflation rate for October 2021 moved quicker to 3.6 percent, faster by 0.3 percentage points from both periods of October 2020 and September 2021 with 3.3 percent each, the Retail Prices Survey (RPS) of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.
“The data implied that the cost of goods purchased in October of this year were 3.6 percent higher than the prices of products purchased in October 2020 and in September 2021,” said Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida Losare.
The 3.6 inflation in October 2021 was driven by the faster price movements on six commodity group items:
* Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages at 4.0 percent from -0.8 percent a year ago
* Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco at 15.6 percent from 7.1 percent
* Furnishing, Household Equipment and Routine Maintenance of the House at 4.0 percent from 3.1 percent
* Communication (0.1 percent) from steady inflation
* Education at 8.6 percent from 5.1 percent; and
* Restaurant and Miscellaneous Goods and Services at 7.1 percent from 5.8 percent.
“Five of 11 commodity group items exhibited slower price changes in October 2021,” Losare said.
Losare also expounded that the items with sluggishly movements were clothing and footwear (dropped by half from 4.4 percent inflation in October 2020 to 2.2 in October 2021); Housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels (remained steady lower than the 3.6 percent inflation in October 2020).
“Health commodity group dropped by 2.8 percentage points at 2.4 percent from 5.2 percent inflation; Transport at 10.4 percent from 11.8 percent; and Recreation and Culture at 0.1 percent from 0.2 percent in October 2020,” Losare said.
“The 2.8 percentage points decrement on health commodity group was mainly pushed by the slower price index of Medical Products, Appliances and Equipment by 0.6 percentage points,” Losare added.
Meanwhile, the Transport commodity group slowed by 0.5 percentage points from 10.9 percent in October 2020 to 10.4 percent in October 2021, due to the 9.58 percentage points dropped in the Transport Services.
All the mentioned commodities are regularly monitored by the PSA which, generated an index of 129.4, translating that an average Guimarasnon household needs P29.4 more in October 2021 to buy a basket of goods worth P100 in 2012.
“The October year-on-year inflation rate throughout the nine consecutive years, the year 2018 had the fastest rate of 5.2 percent, and October 2015 had the slowest rate of -1.8 percent,” Losare said.
The October inflation rates from 2013 until 2021 moved at a random and unpredictable pattern.
“Occurrences of higher price change rates were from the year 2016 until 2018,” Losare said.
Data also showed that from a slump of -1.8 percent rate in 2015, inflation climbed to 4.1 percent in 2016, it again slowed to 2.8 percent in 2017.
“From the slowed 2.8 percent, it then again swayed higher reaching a peak of 5.2 percent or an increment of 2.4 percentage points, however suddenly slackened by 2.3 percentage points in 2019, at a recorded rate of 2.9 percent,” Losare said.
“From then, the rate of price change gradually increased by 0.4 percentage points in 2020 and a 0.3 percentage points faster in October 2021 at 3.6 percent inflation,” Losare added./PN
