1. Guimaras Headline Inflation 

The Guimaras’ headline or overall inflation slowed to 5.5 percent in August 2024 from 6.8 percent in July 2024, bringing the provincial average inflation from January to August 2024 to 6.2 percent. The inflation rate for August 2023 at 4.1 percent is slower by 1.4 percentage points. (Figure 1)

     1.1 Main Drivers to the Upward Trend of the Headline Inflation 

The downtrend in the overall inflation in August 2024 was primarily influenced by the decrease of year on-year price change in the heavily weighted Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages at 7.0 percent during the month, from 10.7 percent in July 2024. The slower Transport annual price change at -1.3 percent in August 2024 from 4.9 percent in the previous month also contributed to the sluggish overall inflation. 

Likewise, the slow-moving inflation rate was also noted in Health at 7.0 percent in August from 7.7 percent in July 2024.

     1.2 Main Contributors to the Headline Inflation

The top three commodity groups contributing to the August 2024 overall inflation were the following: 

a. Food and non-alcoholic beverages with 64.4 percent share or 3.54 percentage points; 

b. Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels with 18.1 percent share or 0.99 percentage point; and 

c. Restaurants and Accommodation Services with 4.8 percent share or 0.26 percentage point. 

2. Guimaras Core Inflation 

Core inflation, which excludes selected food and energy items, also slowed to 3.0 percent in August 2024 from 3.6 percent in the previous month. In August 2023, core inflation was higher at 4.2 percent. 

3. Headline Inflation per province in Region VI

Among provinces of Western Visayas (Region VI), Guimaras posted the second highest headline inflation with 5.5 percent, next to Iloilo with 5.6 percent, followed by Antique with 5.3 percent.

Capiz reported the slowest headline inflation in Region VI, recording 4.3 percent, followed by Aklan and Negros Occidental with 4.5 percent each. 

In terms of headline inflation trend from July to August 2024, the province with the highest increment was Iloilo, with 1.6 percentage points from 4.0 to 5.6 inflation rates, followed by Negros with -0.3 percentage points and Capiz with -0.4 percentage points. 

Aklan and Guimaras showed the slowest price changes with a -1.9 and -1.3 percentage points, respectively.

4. Guimaras Purchasing Power of the Peso (PPP) 
 

The average purchasing power of the peso (PPP) in Guimaras in August 2024 retained at 0.75, against last month’s PPP. From 2018 which is the base year, the PPP continued to depreciate, translating that the one peso in 2018, is currently valued at 0.75 centavos. 

The data also showed that there have been erratic movements in the past 13 months. From 0.79 PPP in August 2023, it gradually slackened until 0.77 PPP in December 2023. 

The PPP continued to depreciate from January until March 2024 to 0.75 centavos. It showed a slight increment from April to June at 0.76 and once again slowed to 0.75 centavos from July until August. (Figure 3)

DEFINITION OF TERMS 

Inflation Rate 

Rate of change in the Consumer Price Index. Its formula is given by: 

Where: is the current period  is the CPI in the previous period. 

Year-on-year inflation 

Rate of change in the Consumer Price Index in a specific period of the current year relative to the same period in the previous year. 

Month-on-Month inflation 

Rate of change in the Consumer Price Index in a specific period of the current month relative to the previous month in the current year. 

Consumer Price Index 

Indicator of the change in the average prices of a fixed basket of goods and services commonly purchased by an average Filipino household for their day-to-day consumption relative to a base year. It is most widely used in the calculation of the inflation rate and purchasing power of the peso (PPP). 

Relative to this, daily, weekly, and bi-monthly price surveys are conducted nationwide at the provincial offices including the District Offices of the National Capital Region (NCR) to be able to generate monthly CPI for All Income Households and CPI for the Bottom 30% Income Households. Indicators produced from price surveys are regarded as designated statistics. 

The seasonally adjusted CPI provides comparisons after removing the seasonal variations that may affect the series. The formula used in computing the CPI is the weighted arithmetic mean of price relatives, the Laspeyre’s formula with a fixed base year period (2018) weights given by. 

Purchasing Power of Peso (PPP) 

Indicates how much the Philippine Peso is worth in each period relative to its value in a base period. It is computed by getting the reciprocal of the CPI and multiplying the result by 100 given by the equation:

Headline Inflation 

Defined as the rate of change in the weighted average prices of all goods and services in the CPI basket while Core Inflation refers to the rate of change in the CPI which excludes the following item/commodity groups: rice, corn, fruits and vegetables, and fuel items.