Inflation rate in Eastern Visayas slows down further to 0.6% in August 2019

By PSA-8
September 19, 2019

TACLOBAN CITY – The Inflation Rate (IR) in Eastern Visayas slowed down further to 0.6 percent in August 2019. This figure is 0.9 percentage point lower compared with the 1.5 percent IR a month ago, and 5.5 percentage points lower compared with the 6.1 percent IR recorded in the same period last year.

The regional inflation rate is 1.1 percentage points lower than the 1.7 percent national average in August 2019.

The provinces of Eastern Samar, Leyte, Northern Samar and Southern Leyte registered lower IRs in August 2019 compared with their figures in the previous month. Northern Samar recorded the biggest drop, from zero inflation rate in July 2019 to 1.8 percent deflation in August 2019. On the other hand, Biliran registered a 0.2 percentage point increase in IR, from 1.9 percent deflation in July 2019 to 1.7 percent deflation during the reference month. Samar inched up by 0.1 percentage point, from 0.3 percent deflation a month ago to 0.2 percent deflation in August 2019. Among the provinces, Northern Samar posted the lowest 1.8 percent deflation. Leyte, meanwhile, recorded the highest IR during the month in review at 2.3 percent (Table 1).

All commodity groups in the region exhibited lower IR in August 2019 compared with their rates in July 2019, except education, which had retained its previous month’s rate of 5.3 percent. Recreation and culture commodity group registered the biggest drop of 3.2 percentage points, from 4.5 percent in July 2019 to 1.3 percent during the month in review. This can be attributed to the huge decrease in the index for recreational and cultural services.

Transport commodity group eased down to 2.2 percent during the reference month from 3.3 percent in July 2019.

The heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages registered a deflation in August 2019 at 0.3 percent, a drop from its previous month’s rate of 0.7 percent. Lower IRs were noted in all of the food items, except food products not elsewhere classified, which registered a 0.2 percentage point increase. Vegetables registered the highest decrease of 3.5 percentage points pushing its IR to 3.0 percent. Fruits and rice indices continued to register deflations at 5.3 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively. Deflation was likewise noted in fish at 0.4 percent.

Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels commodity group slowed down further, from 1.3 percent deflation in July 2019 to 2.0 percent deflation in August 2019.

IR for furnishings, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house commodity group went down by 0.8 percentage point, pushing its IR to 5.9 percent during the month in review.

The rest of the commodity groups registered decreases ranging from 0.1 percentage point to 0.5 percentage point.

The Purchasing Power of Peso (PPP) of the region remained at P0.80 in August 2019. This PPP implies that P100.00 in 2012 (base year) is worth P80.00 only in August 2019.

Leyte posted a P0.01 increase in PPP compared with its figure in July 2019, while Eastern Samar and Samar’s PPP weakened by P0.01. The rest of the provinces sustained their PPP last month. Biliran recorded the strongest PPP at P0.84. Southern Leyte and Leyte ranked second at P0.82, followed by Eastern Samar at P0.78 and Northern Samar at P0.77. Samar posted the weakest PPP at P0.76.