The Province of Biliran recorded an inflation rate (IR) of 3.5 percent in March 2023. This figure is higher by 1.4 percentage points compared to its IR of 2.1 percent in the previous month. Its IR in March 2023 is the same as the recorded IR in March 2022.

Moreover, the provincial IR in March 2023 is lower by 4.1 percentage points and 2.4 percentage points compared to the national IR of 7.6 percent and the regional IR of 5.9 percent, respectively.

PRICE SITUATION: YEAR-ON-YEAR

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

In March 2023, the province reported an IR of 3.5 percent. This refers to All Items or the provincial market basket which represents the goods and services commonly purchased by the households in Biliran.

Eight (8) out of 13 commodity groups of Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported higher IRs in March 2023. 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; Restaurants and Accommodation Services; and Personal Care, and Miscellaneous Goods and Services.

Two (2) groups namely the Housing, Water, Gas, Electricity and Other Fuels; and Transport posted lower IRs in March 2023. Meanwhile, the remaining groups of the Information and Communication; Education Services; and Financial Services observed sustained IRs in March 2023 as compared to the previous month.

The Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco group set the highest IR with a faster rate of 6.1 percent. This was followed by the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages and the Transport groups with an IR of 4.4 percent each, and the Clothing and Footwear group with an IR of 3.6 percent. The Restaurants and Accommodation Services registered the least with an IR of 1.3 percent while some commodity groups have zero annual growth rates.

Moreover, the food index reported an IR of 4.5 percent in March 2023 which increased by 5.6 percentage points from the deflation of 1.1 percent in February 2023. This resulted from the increase in the food items most especially the fish and other seafood.

Rice, the central commodity of the Filipinos, recorded a lower IR of 1.4 percent in March 2023. It is, however, higher by 5.5 percentage points from its recorded deflation of 4.1 percent in March 2022.

The Non-Food category in general observed a decline in its IR by 2.2 percentage points from 4.9 percent in February 2023 to 2.7 percent in March 2023.

CONSUMER PRICE INDEX

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) in March 2023 was recorded at 116.8 percent. This implies that the average level of prices of consumer goods and services purchased by households in March 2023 was higher by 16.8 percent compared with the prices in 2018.

In addition, the provincial CPI in March 2023 is lower by 3.5 percentage points than the regional CPI of 120.3 percent and also lower by 4.3 percentage points than the national CPI of 121.1 percent.

Nine (9) of the 13 commodity groups observed higher CPI levels in March 2023. These groups are the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages; Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco; Clothing and Footwear; Housing, Water, Gas, Electricity and Other Fuels; Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Maintenance of the House; Health; Recreation, Sport and Culture; Restaurants and Accommodation Services; and Personal Care, and Miscellaneous Goods and Services.

There were three (3) groups who recorded sustained CPI levels in March 2023 namely the Information and Communication; Education Services; and Financial Services. Meanwhile, only the Transport group observed a decline in its CPI level by 1.4 percentage points from 130.0 in February 2023 to 128.6 in March 2023.

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 Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages group with higher CPI levels of 128.6 percent and 118.8 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 2.2 percentage points from 116.6 percent in February 2023 to 118.8 percent in March 2023. This can be attributed to the increases in the CPI levels of most of its items ranging from 0.1 percentage points to 10.9 percentage points. The sugar, confectionery and desserts item recorded the highest CPI at 141.5 percent, followed by the meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals item at 140.6 percent, and the fish and other seafood at 138.9 percent. Rice, on the other hand, observed an increased CPI at 93.8 percent.

The Non-Food category reported a CPI level of 115.0 percent in March 2023 which is 0.5 percentage points higher than the CPI of 114.5 percent in February 2023. Most commodity groups under this category also had higher CPI levels.

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 0.86. This PPP implies that the goods and services worth Php 1.00 in 2018 is now worth Php 0.86 in March 2023 or you will need Php 116 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