Consumer Price Index

• Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the general measure of the change in the average retail prices of a market basket or collection of goods and services commonly purchased by the average Filipino household.
• The CPI of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) in April 2020 was 121.5. This was higher by 3.8 index points from the 117.7 CPI of April 2019 using 2012 as base year.
• In general, the CPI increased reflecting the rise in the average prices of goods and services in all the six provinces of CAR.

• Among the CAR provinces, Kalinga posted the highest CPI for April 2020 with 127.2, followed by Apayao with 123.4, and Benguet with 121.8 while Abra posted the lowest CPI with 118.6. 

CPI by Commodity Groups

• Among the commodity groups, Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco had the highest CPI in the region with 235.5 index points. The province of Apayao incurred the highest CPI on this commodity with 385.9 index points, followed by Abra, Kalinga, and Ifugao with 311.0, 298.7, and 241.8 index points, respectively.
• Education registered the second highest CPI among the commodity groups in the region for April 2020 with 128.0 index points. Among the provinces, Kalinga had the highest index on education with 193.9, while Apayao had the lowest with 65.7 index points.
• Clothing and Footwear ranked third with 127.7 index points. Kalinga recorded the highest index on clothing and footwear with 134.4, followed by Ifugao and Benguet with 133.1 and 127.5 index points, respectively.
• Transport incurred the lowest CPI among the commodity groups in the region during the month of April 2020 with 101.7 index points. The province of Abra had the highest index on transport with 104.0 index points, while Kalinga had the lowest with 95.4 index points.
• Among the CAR provinces, Kalinga incurred the highest CPI for all items with 127.2, while Abra garnered the lowest index with 118.6 in April 2020.

• By index point change, Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco recorded the highest increase with 18.6 index points. Increases were also incurred in Education (6.2 points), Clothing and Footwear (5.6 points), and Food and non-alcoholic beverages (4.8 points). The rest of the commodity groups reported minimal annual increases.

Inflation Rate

• The average increase in the prices of goods and services in the region increased by 3.2% in April 2020 compared to the 2.6% inflation in April 2019.
• Half of the CAR provinces had lower inflation rates in April 2020. The provinces with higher inflation rates were Benguet, Kalinga, and Mountain Province.
• Mountain Province posted the highest inflation rate in April 2020 with 5.6%, followed by Kalinga with 4.2%. Ifugao and Apayao incurred the least inflation among all provinces both with 1.5%.

By Commodity Group

• Inflation rate of the heavily-weighted Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages index in the region increased by 2.1 percentage point from the March 2020 rate of 2.0 to 4.1 in April 2020.
• Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco remained to have the highest inflation among other commodities in the region in April 2020 with 8.6%, followed by Education with 5.1% and Clothing and Footwear with 4.6%.
• Among all other commodities, Transport incurred the lowest inflation rate with negative 4.9%.

By Food Items, Year-on-Year

• Among the food items, Corn recorded the highest CPI in the region in April 2020 with 172.8. This was followed by Fruits, Fish and Vegetables with 151.8, 140.1, and 131.9 index points, respectively.
• By index point change, Fruits recorded the highest increase by 16.2. Fish followed with 15.7 index point increase followed by Vegetables with 15.0.

• The value of 1 peso in the region was 82 centavos in April 2020. It dropped by three centavos from 85 centavos in April 2019. This can also be translated to a hundred pesos in 2012 was worth 82 pesos in April 2020.
• Also, a basket of goods that can be bought with 100 pesos in December 2012 is worth 121.5 pesos in April 2020.
• The PPP in all the provinces generally weakened in April 2020 compared to the same month of the previous year.
• Abra, Ifugao and Mountain Province had the highest peso value with 84 centavos, followed by Benguet with 82 centavos. Meanwhile, Kalinga had the lowest peso value with 79 centavos.

Figure 7. Worth of a Hundred Pesos by Province, CAR:

April 2019 and April 2020 (2012 = ₱100)