Higher prices as inflation accelerates in the Cordillera

BAGUIO CITY – The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Wednesday urged residents to tighten their belts a bit more as rate of price in-creases in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) accelerated in October 2024 to 1.4 percent. In an online briefing Wednesday, PSA-Cordillera chief statistical specialist Aldrin Bahit said the region’s inflation rate last October posted a faster rate from the previous month’s 1.2 percent. Year-ago rate is 4.7 percent.

The acceleration was driven by higher food prices in all six provinces in the region, he said. Despite the uptick, Bahit said the region has the slowest inflation rate out-side of the National Capital Region (NCR) last month, even lower than the country’s 2.3 percent. Bahit noted that the bottom 30 percent income households posted an average inflation rate of 4.5 per-cent in the 10th month this year, higher than the 3.3 percent average across all income groups in the region during the period.

He said those in the bottom 30 percent spent at least 52 per-cent of their disposable income on food and non-alcoholic beverages, while other expenses are for housing, water, electricity and other fuel, personal care and miscellaneous goods and services.

He said that while expenses are inevitable, there are ways to save on cost such as buying chicken or fish instead of pork for protein and cooking at home instead of eating out.

He added that with 2018 as base year for inflation rate, the quantity of items that can be bought now is lower as a peso then is the equivalent of just 80 centavos now. **Liza Agoot