HEADLINE inflation in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) accelerated to 5.2 percent in October 2018, higher than the 5.0 percent in the previous month and the 1.9 percent a year ago.
Among the provinces in the region, Kalinga province posted the highest inflation rate at 8.8 percent, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) regional office in CAR reported.
It was followed by Apayao with 8.4 percent and Ifugao with 5.9 percent.
Apayao posted the fastest year-on-year acceleration rate as inflation increased by 8.2 percentage points compared to the 0.2 percent in October 2017.
It was followed by Kalinga with a six-percentage-point increase and Mt. Province with an increase of 4.2 percentage points.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the change in the average retail prices of a market basket, was reported at 118.5 in October 2018. This was higher by 5.9 index points from 112.6 CPI in October 2017.
The inflation rate, which measures the change in the average price level year-on-year, is calculated by getting the difference between the CPI of October 2017 and October 2018 and dividing this by the CPI of October 2017.
By commodity groups, inflation rate for food and non-alcoholic beverages index in the region remained the same.
Alcoholic beverages and tobacco had the highest inflation at 21.6 percent followed by health with 7.3 percent.
Among the CAR provinces, Kalinga had the highest CPI for October 2018 at 123.6 followed by Apayao with 121.9, Benguet with 119.5 and Mountain Province, which posted the lowest CPI with 113.7
Alcoholic beverages and tobacco had the highest CPI in the region with 207.8 among the commodity groups with the province of Apayao incurring the highest CPI on alcoholic beverages and tobacco.
Education posted the second highest CPI among the commodity groups in the region with 121.8.
The purchasing power of peso decreased by five centavos to 84 centavos in October 2018 from 89 centavos in October 2017.
This means that one peso in 2012 was worth 84 centavos in October 2018. A basket of goods that could be bought with P100 in October 2012 was worth P118.5 in October this year, PSA-Cordillera said.