The year-on-year inflation rate of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) sped up from 3.8 percent in July to 4.9 percent in August. To date, the current level of inflation is the highest recorded in CAR for 2012.

Seven out of the eleven major commodity groups exhibited faster inflation rates. Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuels leapt by 1.9 percentage points to post 7.9 percent in August. Food and Non Alcoholic Beverages increased from 4.5 percent to 5.6 percent. Transport turned around from -0.4 percent to 0.6 percent. Other commodity groups also posted increases: Clothing and Footwear (0.7 percentage point), Recreation and Culture and Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (0.6 percentage point each), Furnishing, et al. (0.2 percentage point).

Health and Restaurants and Miscellaneous Goods and Services managed to decline by 0.1 percentage point each while Education remained unchanged.

For details of the latest regional and provincial poverty estimates visit
http://www.nscb.gov.ph/poverty/2009/default.asp

In CAR, one peso in 2006 was worth only 77 centavos in August 2012.