1. Guimaras Headline Inflation 

The Guimaras’ headline inflation or overall inflation rose to 6.8 percent in July 2024 from 6.2 percent in June 2024, bringing the provincial average inflation from January to July 2024 to 6.3 percent.  Inflation rate for July 2024 is higher by 4.5 percentage points when compared to the 2.3 percent inflation in July 2023. (Figure 1) 

      1.1 Main Drivers to the Upward Trend of the Headline Inflation 

The uptrend in the overall inflation in July 2024 was primarily influenced by the increase of year-on-year price change in the heavily weighted Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages at 12.5 percent during the month, from 10.9 percent in June 2024. The faster annual growth rate of the Transport index at 4.7 percent in July 2024 from 2.5 percent in the previous month also contributed to the active trend of the overall inflation.

Likewise, fast moving inflation rate was also noted in Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco at 3.4 percent in July from 3.1 percent in June 2024.

1.2 Main Contributors to the Headline Inflation 

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

      a. Food and non-alcoholic beverages with 80.2 percent share or 5.45 percentage points; 

      b. Transport with 5.1 percent share or 0.35 percentage point; and 

       c. Restaurants and Accommodation Services with 3.9 percent share or 0.27 percentage point. 

2. Guimaras Core Inflation

Core inflation, which excludes selected food and energy items, slightly inch up to 3.6 percent in July 2024 from 3.5 percent in the previous month. In July 2023, core inflation was higher at 4.1 percent. 

3. Headline Inflation per province in Region VI 

Guimaras posted the highest headline inflation in Western Visayas (Region VI) with 6.8 percent, followed closely by Aklan with 6.4 percent and Antique with 6.2 percent inflation.

Iloilo City reported the slowest headline inflation in Region VI, recording 4.0 percent, followed by Iloilo, Capiz and Negros Occidental with 4.7, and 4.8 percent, respectively. 

In terms of headline inflation trend from June to July 2024, the province with the highest increment was Guimaras with 0.60 percent, followed by Antique with 0.40 percent and Negros 

Occidental with 0.30 percentage points. 

Iloilo and Aklan showed the slowest inflation rate changes with a -1.0 and 0.20 percentage points, correspondingly. Only Capiz retained its inflation from June to July 2024. 

4. Guimaras Purchasing Power of the Peso (PPP) 

The average purchasing power of the peso (PPP) in Guimaras in July 2024 was at 0.75, lower than the 0.76 last month’s PPP. This denotes that the one peso in 2018 is now valued at 0.75 centavos. 

The data also showed that there have been erratic movements in the past 13 months. From 0.80 PPP in July 2023, it gradually slackened until 0.77 PPP in December 2023.

The PPP continued to depreciate from January until June 2024 with 0.76 centavo to 0.75 centavo in July. (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.