GUIMARAS – The heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages with 12.2 percent inflation in April this year drove up the province’s inflation for the bottom 30% income households (HHs) to 8.6 percent from 8.5 percent in March, bringing the provincial average inflation for low-income from January to April 2024 to 7.4 percent.
According to the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA), the uptrend inflation of food and non-alcoholic beverages was primarily influenced by the faster year-on-year increase in the vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas, and pulses at 13.7 percent in April from -2.2 percent in March.
“Transport with 1.9 percent from 0.5 percent in March 2024, and furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance with 3.6 percent from 3.0 percent also showed a significant share to bottom 30 % income HHs’ inflation in April 2024,” Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare said.
Losare added: “The price increase of transport was mainly pushed by the fast-moving prices of fuels and lubricants for personal transport equipment to 3.2 percent from -0.2 percent inflation in March, which include diesel, gasoline, liquid petroleum gas, natural gas, LNG, alcohol, biofuels (ethanol, methanol), methane and two-stroke mixtures, and lubricants.”
She also expounded that the fast-moving value of furnishings, household equipment, and routine household maintenance attributed to the non-durable household goods with 3.5 percent inflation in April from 3.0 percent a month ago.
Food and non-alcoholic beverages, transport and furnishings, household equipment, and routine household maintenance were the top three commodities that recorded a huge share of 84.0 percent, 10.8 percent, and 2.3 percent, respectively in the low-income inflation trend in April 2024.
Losare further expounded that the bottom 30% income HHs in Guimaras posted a 133.3 Consumer Price Index (CPI), indicating that a typical low-income Guimarasnon household needed P1,333 in April 2024 to purchase a basket of goods and services worth P1,000 in 2018. The value is lower than the 134.1 CPI in March this year and higher than the 122.8 CPI in April 2023.
She also highlighted that based on the relative poverty concept, households whose per capita income falls below the bottom 30 percent of the cumulative per capita distribution belong to the low-income group./PN
