GUIMARAS – The year-on-year inflation or the annual rate of change in price levels for food continually soared for six straight months starting at 0.5% in the sixth month of 2021 and climbed to a high of 4.2% in November, pushed upward by the faster annual increment on the prices of the six heavily weighted food commodity items.
Data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed the food commodity items which recorded higher markups in November 2021 over its 2020 prices; these contributed to the swift movement of inflation rate:
* meat at 15.5% from -4.0% a year ago
* fish at 11.1% from 3.8%
* milk, Cheese, and Eggs at 3.0% from 1.7%
* vegetables at 16.4% from 4.4% in November 2020
* sugar, jam, honey, chocolate and confectionery at 4.0% from -1.9%
* food products N.E.C at 10.3% from -0.4% a year ago
Comparing inflation trends of Guimaras for 13 months from November 2020 to November 2021, the current 4.2% inflation rate is the fastest rate of change, which is 3.8 percentage points faster than the recorded 0.4% inflation in November 2020 and 0.1 percentage points faster than in October 2021.
The last two months of 2020 had a rising inflation, from 0.4% in November 2020 to a meager increment of 0.5% in December.
Meanwhile, inflation in the province in 2021 started at a lower rate of -0.5% in January, which jumped to 2.0% in February but slid to 0.1% in March until it plopped to -0.6% in April 2021, the slowest rate so far for 11 months of 2021.
From then, inflation moved a bit faster at 0.5% in June and continued to escalate until it hit the 4.2% inflation rate in November 2021.
MONTH-ON-MONTH FOOD INFLATION
The monthly rate of change in the prices of food commodities in November 2021 rose to 1.6 percent from the -0.5 percent a month ago, fueled by the faster price movements of six food commodity items, namely:
* bread and cereals at 0.3% from -1.5% in October 2021
* meat at 1.5% from -0.2%
* fish at 1.6% from 0.4 percent a month ago
* milk, Cheese, and Eggs at 0.3% from -0.6%
* vegetables at 11.1% from 1.9%
* food products N.E.C at 2.6% from 0.8% in October 2021
However, despite the increment in the monthly food inflation in November 2021, four food commodity items managed to deflate, namely:
* other cereals, flour, cereal preparation, bread, pasta and other bakery products at 0.2% from 0.4%
* oils and fats at -1.2% from -0.1%,
* fruits at -1.8% from 0.6% in October 2021, and
* sugar, jam, honey, chocolate and confectionery at 0.3% from 0.9%
The 3.2% inflation rate in February 2021 was the fastest food inflation for 13 months, which soared by 2.9 percentage points from a low of 0.3% in January, due to the price increments of all food commodity items, and the second-highest food inflation was recorded in the month of November 2021 at 1.6%./PN
