Article by Arabella Balderama

The inflation rate in the Philippines has slowed down further to 6.1 percent, as reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. 

According to the data released by the PSA, the downtrend of the country’s inflation rate has reached to four consecutive months, beginning last February with an 8.6 percentage point.

Additionally, the figures showed that the statistics for May 2023 were lower by 0.5 percent compared to April’s records. 

As stated by the PSA, the downtrend was primarily brought about by “the annual decline in the index of transport at -0.5 percent from 2.6 percent annual increase in the previous month,” alongside the heavily-weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages, whose inflation rate lowered to from 7.9 percent to 7.4 percent in April 2023.

“The third main source of deceleration for the May 2023 inflation was restaurants and accommodation services, which registered slower inflation at 8.3 percent from 8.6 percent in the previous month,” PSA further explained.

Moreover, food inflation decreased from 8.0 percent to 7.5 percent due to lower annual growth in seafood, meat, and other parts of slaughtered land animals, as well as milk and other dairy products—their percentage changes were from seven to five percent, 4.2 to 3.2 percent, and 13 to 12.1 percent, respectively.

Despite these downtrends, rice and vegetable inflation rates increased consecutively from 2.9 to 3.4 percent and from 10 to 12.6 percent.

Meanwhile, areas both inside and outside the National Capital Region observed lower inflation rates, declining from 7.1 to 6.5 percent and 6.5 to 6.0 percent, respectively.

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