Inflation Rate in Camiguin Went up to 4.3%

The inflation rate in the province of Camiguin has observed a slight increase to 4.3 percent in February 2024 from 3.5 percent in January 2024. This development contributes to the province's year-to-date inflation, which now stands at 3.9 percent. (Table A and Figure 1)

The four provinces in Northern Mindanao experienced an increase in their inflation rates in February 2024, with Misamis Occidental recording the highest increase of 1.9 percentage points, bringing its inflation rate to 2.1 percent in February 2024, from 0.2 percent in February 2024. Moreover, Bukidnon recorded a decrease in the inflation rate at 5.1 percent, reflecting a decrease of 0.1 percentage points from the previous month.

Furthermore, in February 2024, Camiguin, Lanao del Norte, and Misamis Oriental also posted an increase in the inflation rates at 4.3 percent, 3.0 percent, and 4.0 percent, respectively. These figures mark an increase from their inflation rates in January 2024, which stood at 3.5 percent, 2.8 percent, and 3.4 percent, respectively. (Figure 2)

Figure 2 presents the annual inflation rates of the provinces in Region X in December 2023.

The province's inflation rate was primarily driven by an increase in the Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels and transport sectors, increasing from -2.1 percent and -7.1 percent in January to 0.0 percent and -5.0 percent, respectively in February. This represents a rise of 2.1 percentage points within the month. Additionally, various other groups also observed a growth in their annual inflation rates during February 2024:

     • Food and non-alcoholic beverages, 9.1 percent, from 8.9 percent; 
     • Alcoholic beverages and tobacco, 10.6 percent, from 10.2 percent; 
     • Clothing and footwear, 4.4 percent, from 3.4 percent; 
     • Information and communication, 0.6 percent, from 0.3 percent 
     • Recreation, sport and culture, 2.9 percent, from 2.0 percent; 
     • Restaurants and accommodation services, 1.2 percent, from 0.5 percent; 
     • Personal care, and miscellaneous goods and services, 2.7 percent, from 2.1 percent.

In comparison, lower inflation rates were observed in several indices. Notably, the index for Furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance decreased to 2.9 percent, lower by 0.4 percentage points compared to January. Similarly, Health experienced a decline to 1.2 percent, marking a 0.5 percentage point decrease from the previous month. Meanwhile, the Financial services and education services indices retained a zero percent increase, maintaining a -11.1 percent and 0.7 percent inflation rate. (Table 1)

Table 1 Year-on-Year Inflation Rates by Commodity Group: 
Camiguin (2018 = 100)

The rise in the housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels sector in February 2024 was primarily driven by an expansion of electricity, gas and other fuels in its monthly inflation rate, which increased by 3.1 percent while in the transport sector it was primarily driven by an expansion of operation of personal transport equipment, which increased by 4.7 percent. Moreover, the slight decrease in the inflation rate of furnishings, household equipment, and routine household maintenance was influenced by the stabilization of the percentage of other commodities, despite moderate increases in certain areas.

Furthermore, the decreased inflation in the health was primarily attributed to a maintaining of monthly inflation rate in medicines and health products which is 0.0 percent.

(SGD)FRANCISCO C. GALAGAR JR. 
Chief Statistical Specialist

Technical Notes

This Special Release presents the results of the Survey of Retail Prices of Commodities and Services for the Generation of Consumer Price Index (CPI) conducted in July 2023.

CPI

The CPI is an indicator of the change in the average retail prices of a fixed basket of goods and services commonly purchased by households for their day-to-day consumption relative to a base year.

Uses of the CPI

As an indicator, the CPI is most widely used in the calculation of the inflation rate and purchasing power of the peso. It is a major statistical series used for economic analysis and as monitoring indicator of government economic policy.

The CPI is also used as a deflator to express value series in real terms, which is, measuring the change in actual volume of transactions by removing the effects of price changes. Another major importance of the CPI is its use as basis to adjust wages in labor management contracts as well as pensions and retirement benefits. The CPI also serves as inputs in wage adjustments through the collective bargaining agreements.

Components of the CPI

a. Base Period 

This is a reference date or simply a convenient benchmark to which a continuous series of index numbers can be related. Since the CPI measures the average changes in the retail prices of a fixed basket of goods, it is necessary to compare the movement in previous years back to a reference date at which the index is taken as equal to 100.

The present series uses the 2018 as the base year. The year 2018 was chosen as the base year because it is the year when the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) was conducted. The FIES is the basis of the CPI weights. b. Market Basket Market basket refers to a sample of thousands of varieties of goods purchased for consumption and services availed by the households in the country. It was selected to represent the composite price behavior of all goods and services purchased by the consumers.

c. Weighting System

The weighting system is a desirable system that considers the relevance of the components of the index. For the CPI, the weighting pattern uses the expenditures on various consumer items purchased by households as a proportion to total expenditures.

d. Geographic Coverage

CPI values are computed at the national, regional, and provincial levels, and for selected cities. A separate CPI for NCR is also computed.

e. Classification Standards

The 2012-based CPI series is the first in the series that used the 1999 United Nations Classification of the Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP) in determining the commodity groupings of the items and services included in the market basket. The 2018-based CPI also follows the 2015 Philippine Standard Geographic Classification codes.

Inflation Rate

The inflation rate (IR) is the annual or monthly rate of change of the CPI in percent. It is interpreted in terms of declining purchasing power of money.