The Province of Biliran recorded an inflation rate (IR) of 5.8 percent in December 2022. This figure is lower by 0.4 percentage points compared to its IR of 6.2 percent in the previous month. In contrast, it is higher by 3.2 percentage points than its IR of 2.6 percent in December 2021.

     Moreover, the provincial IR in December 2022 is lower by 2.3 percentage points and 2.0 percentage points compared to the national IR of 8.1 percent and the regional IR of 7.8 percent, respectively. 

As shown in Table 1, Biliran recorded the lowest inflation rate among the six (6) provinces in the Eastern Visayas region.

     In December 2022, the province reported an IR of 5.8 percent. This refers to All Items or the provincial market basket which represents the goods and services commonly purchased by the households in Biliran. 

     Seven (7) out of 13 commodity groups of Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported higher IRs in December 2022. These groups are the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages; Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco; Clothing and Footwear; Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Maintenance of the House; Health; Recreation, Sport and Culture; and Personal Care and Miscellaneous Goods and Services. 

     Two (2) groups namely the Housing, Water, Gas, Electricity, and Other Fuels; and Transport reported lower IRs in December 2022. Meanwhile, the remaining groups of Information and Communication; Education Services; Restaurants and Accommodation Services; and Financial Services sustained their IRs from the previous month. 

     The Transport group set the highest IR with a slower rate of 12.6 percent. This was followed by the Housing, Water, Gas, Electricity and Other Fuels with 8.9 percent and the groups of Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages, and Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco with respective IRs of 5.6 percent. The Recreation, Sport and Culture registered the least IR at 1.0 percent. Some commodity groups have zero annual growth rates. 

     Moreover, the food index reported an IR of 5.8 percent in December 2022 which is higher by 0.9 percentage points from its IR of 4.9 percent in November 2022. This resulted from the decline in the items under the index particularly of vegetables, tubers, cooking bananas and pulses by 3.8 percentage points, fish and other seafoods by 3.3 percentage points, and fruits and nuts by 3.2 percentage points. 

     Rice, the central commodity of the Filipinos, recorded a sustained IR of 2.6 percent in December 2022. It is higher by 9.5 percentage points from its recorded deflation of 6.9 percent in December 2021.

     The Non-Food category in general observed a decrease in its IR by 1.6 percentage points from 7.5 percent in November 2022 to 5.9 percent in December 2022.

CONSUMER PRICE INDEX

     The Consumer Price Index (CPI) in December 2022 was recorded at 114.7 percent. This implies that the average level of prices of consumer goods and services purchased by households in December 2022 was higher by 14.7 percent compared with the prices in 2018. 

     In addition, the provincial CPI in December 2022 is lower by 4.0 percentage points than the regional CPI of 118.7 percent and also lower by 4.7 percentage points than the national CPI of 119.4 percent. 

     Seven (7) of the 13 commodity groups observed higher CPI levels in December 2022. These groups are the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages; Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco; Clothing and Footwear; Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Maintenance of the House; Health; Recreation, Sport and Culture; and Personal Care and Miscellaneous Goods and Services. 

     On the other hand, there were two (2) groups who recorded lower CPI levels in December 2022 namely the Housing, Water, Gas, Electricity, and Other Fuels; and Transport. The rest of the commodities retained their CPI levels from the previous month.

     By commodity group, Financial Services still posted the highest CPI with a sustained level of 162.4 percent. This was followed by the Transport group and the Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco group with a CPI level of 131.0 percent and 115.9 percent, respectively. In contrast, the Information and Communication group recorded the least CPI with a sustained level of 103.4 percent. 

     In general, the CPI of the food index increased by 1.3 percentage points from 113.1 percent to 114.4 percent. This can be attributed to the increases in the CPI levels of some of its items ranging from 0.1 percentage points to 8.2 percentage points. The meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals item recorded the highest CPI at 139.4 percent, followed by Sugar, Confectionery and Desserts at 138.6 percent, and by Fruits and Nuts at 137.5 percent. Rice, on the other hand, observed a sustained CPI at 93.1 percent. 

     The Non-Food category reported a CPI level of 114.7 percent in December 2022 which is 1.9 percentage points lower than the CPI of 116.6 percent in November 2022. Most commodity groups under this category had higher CPI levels with increases ranging from 0.1 percentage points to 1.0 percentage points.

PURCHASING POWER OF PESO

     The price changes reflected in the CPI caused the value of the national currency in Biliran to have a value of Php 0.87. This PPP implies that the goods and services worth Php 1.00 in 2018 is now worth Php 0.87 in December 2022 or you will need Php 115 to buy the same goods and services worth Php 100 in 2018.

TECHNICAL NOTES 

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

REBASING THE CPI - is necessary to ensure that this barometer of economic phenomena is truly reflective of current situation. Consumer taste, fashion and technology change over time causing the fixed market basket of goods and services to become outmoded. To capture such changes for a more meaningful price comparison, revision or updating of the fixed market basket, the sample outlets, the weights and the base year had to be done periodically. 

MARKET BASKET - refers to a sample of goods and services used to represent all goods and services bought by a particular group of consumers in a particular area. 

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. 

MONITORING OF PRICES - is to establish baseline information for prices of the items in the base year and monitoring of the prices of the items on a regular basis. 

COMPUTING THE CPI - The formula uses straightforward computation of monthly average prices of commodities; chain method for elementary items indexes; geometric mean method at the lowest level (subclass level) of aggregation of price indexes; and weighted arithmetic mean at the higher levels of aggregation of price indexes. 

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.

SGD. RENAVIL V. CUEVA 
Chief Statistical Specialist