Guimaras’ inflation aggravates to 4.9 pct in March 2022

Guimaras’ headline inflation rate for March 2022 increased to 4.9 percent, higher by 1.2 percentage points than the March 2021 rate, due to faster price movements in seven commodity group items, according to the results of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) Survey on Retail Prices on Commodities that was rebased to 2018.

“This simply means that the cost of goods purchased in March of this year was 1.2 percent higher than the prices of products purchased in March 2021 and January 2022,” Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare, said.

Losare also explained that the increase in the overall inflation was mainly due to the faster annual price movements of the following commodity group items:

• Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (4.7%) from 3.7% a year ago
• Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuels (4.2%) from 1.7%
• Health (4.5%) from 0.4%
• Information and Communication (-0.4%) from -1.3%
• Recreation, Sport and Culture (9.2%) from 8.1%
• Education Service (14.8%)
• Financial Services (63.6%)from 6.3%

On the other hand, in the indices of the following, annual price changes were slower:

• Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (7.3%) from 16.6% in March 2021
• Clothing and Footwear (2.3%) from 4.3%
• Furnishing, Household Equipment, and Routine Household Maintenance (2.7%) from 9.1%
• Transport (10.4%) from 35.7%
• Restaurants and Accommodation Services (1.2%) from 13.2%
• Personal Care, and Miscellaneous Goods and Services (2.6%) from 7.4%

Only two commodity groups have maintained their levels from a month ago, namely:

• Education Service (14.8%)
• Financial Services (63.6%)

“A Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 116.6 for March 2022 means that an average Guimarasnon will need 16.6 pesos more in March 2022 to buy the same basket of goods that cost 100 pesos in 2018,” Losare said.

Figure 1 shows the March year-on-year inflation rates throughout the four consecutive years, were a bit steady from 2019 to 2020 but suddenly dropped to 3.7 percent for 2021 and increased to 4.9 percent in March 2022.