• 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 October 2021 was 129.1. This was higher by 7.4 index points from the 121.7 CPI of October 2020 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 October 2021 with 135.3, followed by Apayao with 130.2 and Benguet with 129.9 while Abra posted the lowest CPI with 125.0.

CPI by Commodity Groups

• Among the commodity groups, Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco had the highest CPI in the region with 266.6 price index. The province of Apayao incurred the highest CPI on this commodity with 459.0 index points, followed by Abra, Kalinga, and Ifugao with 368.9, 359.2, and 276.7 index points, respectively.
• Clothing and Footwear ranked second among the commodity groups in the region for October 2021 with 133.6 index points. Among the provinces, Kalinga had the highest index on clothing and footwear with 143.2, while Apayao had the lowest with 127.2 index points.
• Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages registered the third highest CPI with 132.6 index points. Benguet recorded the highest index on food and non-alcoholic beverages with 136.7, followed by Kalinga and Mountain Province with 136.0 and 127.2 index points, respectively.
• Communication continued to incur the lowest CPI among the commodity groups in the region during the month of October 2021 with 103.1 index points. The province of Kalinga incurred the highest index on communication with 105.1 index points, while Mountain Province had the lowest with 98.0 index points.
•  Among the CAR provinces, Kalinga incurred the highest CPI for all items with 135.8, while Abra garnered the lowest index with 125.0 in October 2021.

• By index point change, Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco recorded the highest increase with 20.2 index points. Increases were also incurred in Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages (11.5 index points), Transport (7.2 index points), and Restaurant and Miscellaneous Goods and Services (7.1 index points). The rest of the commodity groups reported minimal annual increases.

• The average increase in the prices of goods and services in the region was 6.1% in October 2021, higher by 4.6 percentage points compared with the inflation of 1.5% in October 2020.
• Benguet posted the highest inflation rate in October 2021 with 7.1%, followed by Kalinga and Ifugao with 7.0% and 6.6%, respectively. Apayao recorded the lowest inflation among all CAR provinces with 2.4%.
• Only the province of Apayao recorded lower inflation rate for October 2021 compared to October 2020, all other provinces recorded higher inflation rates compared to the same month the previous year.

Figure 4. Year-on-Year Inflation Rates by Province,

CAR: October 2020 and 2021

(2012=100)

 

By Commodity Group

• Inflation rate of the heavily-weighted Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages in September 2021 had the same rate in October 2021 with 9.5% prices increase.
• Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages had the highest inflation rate among other commodities in the region with 9.5% in October 2021 followed by Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco with 8.2%, and Transport Services with 6.9%.

Figure 5. Inflation Rates by Commodity Groups, CAR: October 2021 (2012=100)

• Among all other commodities, Education incurred the lowest inflation rate of 0.0%.

By Food Items, Year-on-Year

• Among the food items, Corn recorded the highest CPI in the region in October 2021 with 199.4 index points. This was followed by Vegetables, Fruits, and Meat with 157.7, 156.0, and 153.5 index points, respectively.
• By index point change, Vegetables recorded the highest with 40.6. Corn followed with 25.4 index point increase followed by Meat with 25.3 index point increase. Food products, N.E.C (not elsewhere classified) posted the lowest index point change with (0.6) points.