The Inflation Rate (IR) in Eastern Visayas decelerated further to 5.9 percent in March 2023, from 6.3 percent inflation in February 2023. The regional IR, however, was lower than the 7.6 percent national IR in March 2023. With this month’s IR, the region’s average IR from January to March 2023 stood at 6.3 percent. In March 2022, the regional IR was lower at 5.3 percent (Table 1).

 

 

The acceleration in the IR for food was primarily influenced by the growth in the heavily weighted Rice at 3.3 percent in March 2023, from 0.6 percent in February 2023. Also contributing to the acceleration was the higher IR of Fish and other seafood (8.4%); Fruits and nuts (12.8%), and Ready-made food and other food products n.e.c. (8.4%). Moreover, IRs were lower for the following commodities:

 

Compared with their respective previous month’s IRs, only BARMM exhibited higher IR in March 2023, the rest of the regions had lower inflation rates. Among the regions, Eastern Visayas’ IR at 5.9 percent ranked at the second lowest IR during the month. Western Visayas registered the highest IR at 9.1 percent, closely followed by Zamboanga Peninsula and Davao Region at 9.0 percent. On the other hand, CAR recorded the lowest IR at 5.6 percent in March 2023 (Figure 2 and Table 4).

 

The current CPI series is 2018-based. The rebasing to 2018 is the 12th base period and 11th rebasing for CPI. The five steps involved in the rebasing/computing of CPI are as follows: (1) identification of the base year (2) determination of the market basket (3) determination of household consumption patterns/weights (4) monitoring of prices of items in the basket and (5) computation of CPI.

 

The 2018-based CPI series uses the same method of computation as the 2012-based CPI series, which is chained Laspeyres formula.

 

BASE YEAR - is a period at which the index number is set to 100. It is the reference point of the index number series. The CPI is rebased from 2012 to 2018.

 

CONSUMER PRICE INDEX (CPI) - is an indicator of the change in the average prices of a fixed basket of goods and services commonly purchased by households relative to a base year.

 

DEFLATION - is the decline in prices for goods and services that happens when the inflation rate dips below zero percent.

 

INFLATION RATE (IR) - is the annual rate of change or the year-on-year changes in CPI. It indicates how fast or how slow price changes over two time periods (year-on-year). Contrary to common knowledge, low inflation does not necessarily connote that prices of commodities are falling. It means that prices continue to increase but at a slower rate.

 

MARKET BASKET - refers to a sample of goods and services commonly purchased by the households. The market basket for CPI was updated using the results of the 2021 Survey of Key Informants (SKI). The commodities included in the 2018-based CPI market basket were the modal commodities which were considered as the most commonly purchased/availed commodities by the households. The commodities in the 2018-based CPI market basket were grouped/classified according to the 2020 Philippine Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (PCOICOP).

 

MONITORING OF PRICES - involves establishing baseline information for the prices of the items in the base year and monitoring the prices of the items on a regular basis. Data collection for the CPI is done by the provincial office twice a month, except for petroleum products which are monitored on a weekly basis, every Friday. First collection phase is done during the first five days of the month while the second phase is on the 15th to 17th day of the month.

 

PURCHASING POWER OF PESO (PPP) - gives an indication of the real value of peso (how much it is worth) in a given period relative to its value in the base period. It is computed as the reciprocal of CPI multiplied by 100.

 

RETAIL PRICE - refers to the actual price at which retailers sell a commodity on spot or earliest delivery, usually in small quantities for consumption and not for resale. It is confined to transactions on cash basis in the free market and excludes black-market prices and prices of commodities that are on sale as in summer sales, anniversary sales, Christmas sales, etc.

 

WEIGHTS - is 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. The weights for the 2018-based CPI were derived from the expenditure data of the 2018 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES). The weight for each commodity/group of commodities is the proportion of the expenditure commodity/group of commodities to the total national expenditure. The sum of the weights of the commodity groups at the national level is equal to 100.