Eastern Visayas

The Inflation Rate (IR) in Eastern Visayas remained at 3.6 percent in May 2024. This brings the region’s average IR from January to May 2024 at 3.6 percent. The regional IR was lower than the 3.9 percent national IR in May 2024. The May 2024 regional IR was also lower than the 4.2 regional IR in May 2023 (Table 1).

Main Contributors to the Regional Inflation

The top three commodity groups that contributed to the May 2024 regional IR were the following:

a. Food and non – alcoholic beverages with 83.5 percent share or 3.01 percentage points;   
b. Transport with 6.3 percent share or 0.23 percentage point; and   
c. Restaurants and accommodation services, with 4.7 percent share or 0.17 percentage point.

Food Inflation

The IR for food index decreased to 6.5 percent in May 2024, from 6.8 percent in April 2024. The IR for food in May 2023 was higher at 6.9 percent (Table 3).

The decrease in IR for food in May 2024 was primarily influenced by the lower IR for rice at 22.8 percent in May 2024 from 24.9 percent in April 2024. This was followed by fish and other seafood with a faster annual decline of 2.4 percent during the month from an annual decline of 1.8 percent in April 2024. Milk, other dairy products and eggs also contributed to the downtrend with 3.7 percent IR in May 2024 from 4.9 percent in April 2024.

In addition, corn, and flour, bread and other bakery products, pasta products, and other cereals, registered lower IRs at 5.7 percent, and 2.7 percent during the month from 5.9 percent, and 3.3 percent, respectively, in April 2024.

On the other hand, higher IRs were observed in fruits and nuts at 10.1 percent in May 2024 from 8.8 percent in April 2024, and ready-made food and other food products not elsewhere classified at 4.3 percent during the month from 3.1 percent in April 2024.

Moreover, slower annual price decreases were noted in the following food groups during the month:

a. Meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals, -0.8 percent from -1.2 percent;   
b. Vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses, -2.7 percent from -5.4 percent; and   
c. Sugar, confectionery and desserts, -1.3 percent from -1.7 percent.

Meanwhile, oils and fats retained its annual price decrease in April 2024 at 0.8 percent.

Main Contributors to the Food Inflation

Food inflation shared 81.3 percent or 2.9 percentage points to the overall inflation in May 2024. The food groups with the highest contribution to the food inflation during the month were the following:

a. Cereals and cereal products, which includes rice, corn, flour, bread and other bakery products, pasta products, and other cereals, with 99.0 percent share or 6.4 percentage points;   
b. Fruits and nuts, with 5.2 percent share or 0.3 percentage point; and   
c. Milk, other dairy products and eggs, with 3.5 percent share or 0.2 percentage point.

Inflation Rate by Region

Compared with their respective IRs in May 2024, six (6) regions recorded higher IRs in May 2024. Eight (8) regions exhibited lower IRs, while the remaining three (3) regions moved the same as in the previous month. Eastern Visayas’ IR at 3.6 percent ranked fifth among the regions with low IRs during the month in review. BARMM recorded the highest IR at 5.9 percent, while Ilocos Region registered the lowest IR at 2.3 percent (Figure 2 and Table 4).

Among regions, eleven (11) regions exhibited higher IRs than the national IR in May 2024 which posted at 3.9 percent. While six (6) regions posted lower IR compared with the national IR in the same period.

Inflation Rate by Province

Relative to their IRs in April 2024, the Highly Urbanized City (HUC) of Tacloban and the province of Leyte retained its IRs in May 2024. Biliran, Eastern Samar, and Northern Samar, registered higher IRs, while Samar and Southern Leyte registered lower IRs. Among the provinces, Biliran posted the highest IR at 4.8 percent in May 2024. This was followed by Eastern Samar and Southern Leyte both at 4.1 percent. Samar and Leyte’s IR came next at 3.8 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively. The lowest IR was noted in Northern Samar at 2.7 percent. Meanwhile, IR for Tacloban City, was recorded at 3.2 percent in May 2024 (Figure 3 and Table 5).

TECHNICAL NOTES

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 underground 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.

(SGD) WILMA A. PERANTE     
Regional Director