Samar Province’s inflation rate slows down to 7.1 in February 

The rate of increase in prices of commodities in Samar slowed down to 7.1 percent in February 2023, from the 8.3 percent in January. This represents a 1.2 percentage points decrease as shown in Samar’s month on month average rate of price increases (Figure 1) from January to February. This is also lower than the 7.7 percent provincial year-to-date trend that was recorded in the same period last year. (Table 1) 

The downtrend can be attributed to the major decreases in Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other Fuels from s12.0 percent in January to 5.4 percent in February; and, Transport from 4.6 percent in January to 0.2 percent in February which contributed 78.8 percent and 21.2 percent shares to the trend, respectively. 

On the contrary, six out of thirteen commodity groups recorded increases which include: Restaurants and Accommodation Services (11.2%); Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (9.2%); Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Household Maintenance (6.7%); Personal Care, and Miscellaneous Goods and Services (6.5%); Health (3.6%); and Clothing and Footwear (1.4%). (Figure 2)

Samar’s IR ranks second highest in Eastern Visayas 

Samar Province ranked second highest among the six provinces in the region with its 7.1 inflation rate in February. Eastern Samar recorded the highest inflation rate with 10.3 percent, while Northern Samar places behind both provinces with 6.8 percent during the same reference period. An inflation rate of 4.3 percent was generated by Tacloban City, Region VIII’s lone highly-urbanized city (HUC). (Figure 3)

Purchasing Power of Peso remains at 0.81 in February 

The provincial Purchasing Power of Peso remained at 0.81, still at a weaker value after a continuous decrease from February of the previous year. Further, this shows that a peso in 2018 is worth Php0.82 (82 centavos) at present time. (Figure 4)

CPI for All Items declines to 123.5 

Samar Province’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) depicted a decline of 0.5 index points from the 124.0 index in January to 123.5 in February of the same year, indicating that about Php123.50 is needed by a typical household to buy the same basket of goods and services in February.

Despite the decrease, goods and services are still more costly in February 2023 compared to the same month in 2022 as shown in the 8.2-point gap generated from the indices between February 2022 and the same month of the previous year. (Figure 5)

SGD. RIZA N. MORALETA
Chief Statistical Specialist

TECHNICAL NOTES 

Consumer Price Index (CPI) - An indicator of the changes in the average retail prices of a fixed market basket of goods and services commonly purchased by households relative to a base year.

Uses of CPI - The CPI is most widely used in the calculation of the inflation rate and purchasing power of peso. It is a major statistical series used for economic analysis and as a monitoring indicator of government economic policy. 

Base Period/Year - The reference date or base period is the benchmark or reference date or period at which the index is taken as equal to 100. The current base period is 2018. 

Market Basket - A sample of goods and services purchased for consumption availed by the households in the country selected to represent the composite price behavior of all goods and services purchased by consumers. 

Weight - A value attached to a commodity or group of commodities to indicate the relative importance of that commodity or group of commodities in the market basket. 

Formula - The formula used in computing the CPI is the weighted arithmetic mean of price relatives, the Laspeyre’s formula with a fixed base year period (2018) weights.

Geographic Coverage - CPI values are computed at the national, regional, and provincial levels, and for selected cities. 

Inflation Rate - is the rate of change of the CPI expressed in percent. Inflation is interpreted in terms of the declining purchasing power of peso. 

Purchasing Power of Peso - shows how much the peso in the base period is worth in the current period. It is computed as the reciprocal of the CPI for the period under review multiplied by 100.