malaysiangTACLOBAN CITY – Eastern Visayas recorded a 3.3 percent inflation rate (IR) in August 2024, lower than the 4.4 percent recorded the previous month, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Thursday.
The downtrend in inflation rate was mainly due to the lower inflation on food and non-alcoholic beverages at 5.5 percent last month from 6.8 percent in July 2024.
Also contributing to the decrease was the lower inflation rate in transport, health, education services, clothing and footwear, alcoholic beverages and tobacco, and recreation.
‘The decrease of the IR for food in August 2024 was primarily influenced by the slower IR in rice at 17.6 percent during the month from 20.8 percent in July 2024. The faster annual price decline of fish and other seafood at 4.2 percent in August 2024 from 2.6 percent annual price decline in July 2024 also contributed to the downtrend,’ PSA Eastern Visayas Regional Director Wilma Perante said in a statement.
All the region’s six provinces also posted a lower IR bet
ween July to August 2024.
Biliran province posted the highest inflation rate in August at 5 percent but this was lower than the 6.1 percent recorded a month earlier.
Southern Leyte came next at 3.9 percent, lower from the 4.8 percent recorded in July.
Leyte province registered a 3.8 percent inflation, lower than the 4.6 percent logged the previous month.
Although Eastern Samar province recorded the fourth highest inflation at 2.7 percent, it is way lower than the 3.3 percent in July.
Northern Samar’s inflation rate also dropped to 2.6 percent in August from 4.2 percent in July.
Samar posted the lowest inflation at 2.5 percent, significantly lower than the 4.5 percent recorded a month earlier.
The inflation rate is the annual rate of change or the year-on-year changes in the consumer price index. It indicates how fast or slow the price changes over two time periods.
Contrary to common knowledge, Perante said low inflation does not necessarily mean that prices of commodities are decreasing; instead, it
means that prices continue to increase but at a slower rate.
The PSA came up with the data by establishing baseline information for the prices of the items in the base year 2018 and monitoring their prices regularly.
Data collection for the consumer price index is done by the PSA provincial twice monthly, except for petroleum products, which they monitor every Friday.
Source: Philippines News agency
