Inflation rate in Eastern Visayas decreases further to 3.1% in February 2019

By PSA-8
March 14, 2019

TACLOBAN CITY – The Inflation Rate (IR) in Eastern Visayas decreased further to 3.1 percent in February 2019. This IR is 0.9 percentage point lower compared with the 4.0 percent IR a month ago, and 1.2 percentage points lower compared with the 4.3 percent IR recorded in the same period last year. The regional inflation rate is 0.7 percentage point lower than the 3.8 percent national average in February 2019.

All provinces in the region registered lower inflation rates in February 2019 compared with their figures in the previous month. Samar registered the highest decrease of 2.9 percentage points, from 6.3 percent in January 2019 to 3.4 percent in February 2019. The rest of the provinces registered decreases ranging from 0.5 percentage point to 0.7 percentage point. Among the provinces, Eastern Samar recorded the highest IR at 4.8 percent, while Biliran posted the lowest at 0.7 percent (Table 1).

Among the commodity groups, alcoholic beverages and tobacco recorded the highest decrease of 8.2 percentage points, from a double digit 17.4 percent in January 2019 to 9.2 percent during the month in review. It is still, however, the highest IR among all items.

Inflation rate for transport also went down by 2.1 percentage points, from 2.5 percent in January 2019 to 0.4 percent in February 2019. This can be traced to the deflation seen in the index for transport services, and slower IR in the index for operation of personal transport equipment.

The heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages declined to 4.0 percent in February 2019 from its previous month’s rate of 5.3 percent, a decrease of 1.3 percentage points. This can be attributed to the slower price increases of majority of the food items. Fruits index continued to register a negative inflation rate at 5.4 percent, lower than the 1.3 percent in January 2019.Non-alcoholic beverages, meanwhile, recorded a 0.1 percentage point uptick, posting a double digit IR of 10.0 percent during the reference month.

Meanwhile, furnishings, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house commodity group increased to 5.3 percent during the reference month, 0.8 percentage point higher compared with the 4.5 percent IR in January 2019. Increases were observed in all indices, except for the household textiles index.

Clothing and footwear also recorded an increase at 2.8 percent in February 2019 from 2.2 percent a month ago.IR for restaurant and miscellaneous goods and services commodity group inched up by 0.3 percentage point settling at 1.9 percent during the month in review.

The Purchasing Power of Peso (PPP) of the region remained at P0.80 in February 2019. This PPP implies that goods and services worth 100 pesos in February 2019 costs 80 pesos only in 2012.

Eastern Samar registered a 0.01 centavo increase in PPP compared with their figures in January 2019, while Leyte recorded a 0.01 centavo decrease from its PPP a month ago. The rest of the provinces sustained their PPP last month. Biliran, Leyte and Southern Leyte recorded the strongest PPP at P0.82. Eastern Samar followed at P0.78, while Northern Samar and Samar posted the weakest PPP at P0.76.