Passenger transport, oil price drops ease inflation in Guimaras

Slower price movement in Passenger Transport, Gasoline, and Diesel eased the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in Guimaras.

This also pushed the province’s headline inflation rate to 4.7 percent in May 2023, slower against 4.8 percent in April 2023, based on the generated data from Retail Price Survey (RPS) conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

“The transport inflation rate showed the highest share of 36.5 percent to the slower inflation of Guimaras Province at 4.7 percent in May, followed by Housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels, with 26.8 and Personal care, and miscellaneous goods and services with 22.6 percent share,” Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare said.

Losare said the downtrend in Transport (-9.9%) was mainly due to the slower price movement of Gasoline at –20.1%, Passenger transport by sea and the inland waterway (64.3%), Diesel (–26.3%), and Passenger transport by air, domestic (46.0%).

Aside from Transport, slower inflation in Housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels also dragged headline inflation in May. The slowdown is mainly due to Household cleaning and maintenance products with 3.1% inflation.

Losare also explained that the 6.8 percent inflation in Personal care and miscellaneous goods and services also contributed to a significant downtrend in the May rate, particularly in other appliances, articles, and products for personal care, with 8.5 percent inflation.

“The food inflation in Guimaras Province soared to 7.9 percent in May 2023, higher by 0.4 percentage point against the previous month’s rate and faster by 0.8 percentage points from the 7.1 percent inflation in the same month a year ago,” Losare said.

The 7.9 percent uptrend in the May 2023 food inflation in Guimaras was mainly due to the faster price movements of the food groups, specifically on Fruits and Nuts (29.7%); Rice (8.9%); and Vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses (13.0%) sharing 34.6, 32.3, and 25.9 percent, correspondingly.

Other food items that pushed the food inflation in May 2023 to a faster rate were: Flour, Bread and Other Bakery Products, Pasta Products, and Other Cereals with 6.6% inflation sharing 4.8%; Ready-made food and other food products N.E.C. with 7.7% inflation giving out 2.3%; and Corn with 12.0% inflation chipping in 0.1%.

Losare added that the 4.7 percent inflation in May 2023 implied that the average price changes of consumer goods and services moved slower with 123.6 CPI.

“This indicates that a typical Guimarasnon household will require 1,236 pesos in May 2023 to purchase a basket of basket of goods and services worth 1,000 pesos in 2018” Losare clarified.

The CPI is used to compute the inflation rate for a specific period, including the Purchasing Power of the Peso (PPP).

“The PPP in Guimaras at 0.81 indicates that one peso in 2018 is worth 0.81 centavos in May 2023, representing a 0.04 percentage points depreciation from the PPP value of 0.85 recorded in May 2022”, Losare said.