The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is pointing at the quick increase in prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, which was at 6.0 percent in June from 4.9 percent in May, as the main reason for the increase in inflation rate.

PSA reported on Tuesday that the country’s annual headline inflation rose to 6.1 percent in June 2022, the highest since October 2018 and averaged at 4.4 percent since January 2022.

Undersecretary Dennis Mapa, National Statistician and Civil Registrar General, said the rise was also due to the rapid increase in prices of meat and other parts of slaughtered animals like chicken (8.1 percent), rice (2 percent), and fruits and nuts, particularly mangoes (1.1 percent).

“The second commodity group that recorded higher inflation in June is transport that has a 17.1 percent share in increase of overall inflation,” Mapa reported in Filipino.

Gasoline posted 53.9 percent in June from 47.2 percent in May, the PSA report added, while diesel is at 92.5 percent from 86.2 percent.

Meanwhile, alcoholic beverages and tobacco also rose at 7.8 percent due to cigarettes that contributed 8.9 percent, beer at 6.2 percent, and spirits and liquors at 5.2 percent.

“Based on our monitoring, well, there are expectations that these prices, particularly food prices will still move upward,” Mapa said.

Apart from this, the PSA confirmed that the purchasing power of peso decreased to 0.87 due to a higher consumer price index (CPI).

“Kapag ‘yung ating CPI ay tumataas, ibig sabihin, lumiliit ‘yung purchasing power ng pera natin, ng piso para bumili ng goods and services. (If our CPI is increasing, that means, the purchasing power of our currency to buy goods and services is getting smaller),” Mapa said.

“It means that on June 2022, our one peso is just worth 87 cents if we compare it to the base year which is 2018,” he added.

For the National Capital Region, the inflation increased further to 5.6 percent in June from 4.7 percent in May, which is also attributed to the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages (6.1 percent), followed by transport (17.2 percent).

The rest of the commodity groups retained their previous month’s annual rates, the PSA said, except for housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels which registered a lower growth of 6.8 percent in June from 7.0 percent in May. (PNA)

Photo Credit: PNA photo by Ben Briones