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Headline inflation declined to a four-month low of 2.3 percent year-on-year in September, but the lack of public transportation, especially in Metro Manila, pushed transportation costs to a 22-month high, hurting the most. poor households.
National Statistician Claire Dennis S. Map said at a news conference Tuesday that soft food prices augured well for the slower rate of increase in commodity prices last month, which led to the average of late September at 2.5 percent, well within the 2-4 percent target range.
During the remaining months of the year, inflation will likely remain in the 2.4-2.5 percent band, Mapa said.
Vegetable and rice prices were either deflated or declined year-on-year by 2.7 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively, the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.
In the case of rice, last month’s deflation was the seventeenth month in a row that retail prices for Philippine staples fell compared to a year ago.
However, rice prices in Metro Manila rose bit by bit for the second month in a row, posting inflation of 1.6 percent last September, even as prices in areas outside the National Capital Region remained lower. year with year.
Mapa said the rise in rice prices at NCR could be attributed to higher transportation and delivery costs, which rose last month.
Transportation inflation in September rose to 8.3 percent year-on-year, the highest since 8.9 percent in November 2018, when world oil prices hit record highs, Mapa noted.
At NCR, freight costs rose 11.5 percent faster year-over-year, while prices outside of NCR also increased 7.3 percent.
Last month, the rate for tricycles soared 45.7 percent year-on-year; collective taxi fare, up to 5.3 percent; and bus fare, 4.5 percent more.
Mapa said the trike fare had gotten more expensive, averaging P18.60 per person in September from just P8.50 a year ago amid social distancing restrictions, as well as a lack of other mass transit options. .
The increase in the transportation fare hit the lowest 30 percent households the hardest, whose consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate was 2.8 percent higher last September.
In particular, transportation inflation among the poor rose 16.3 percent year-on-year last month, PSA data showed.
Since April, when most of the country underwent the longest and tightest COVID-19 lockdown in the region, inflation among the poor has exceeded national headline inflation.
Poor households bore the heaviest burden when food prices rose bit by bit at the beginning of the quarantine due to supply constraints, and now they were also suffering the most from higher transportation fees, Mapa noted.
Faster transportation inflation meant that the more the poor spend to travel to work extracts more of their earnings than they could spend on other goods and services, such as food and utilities.
If physical distancing requirements are extended through the end of the year, travelers should expect these prevailing high transportation costs to continue, Mapa said. [ac]
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