By Gerome Dalipe IV
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the inflation rate in Western Visayas remained steady at 2.7% in March 2025, matching February’s figure and down from 3.1% in March 2024.
The regional average inflation rate from January to March 2025 stood at 3.0%.
According to PSA-6, three key commodity groups contributed most to the region’s overall inflation rate.
Food and non-alcoholic beverages led with a 40.0% share, equivalent to 1.08 percentage points.
Housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels followed with 25.6% or 0.69 percentage points.
Restaurants and accommodation services contributed 7.7% or 0.21 percentage points.
Despite the unchanged headline rate, various commodity groups recorded price fluctuations.
Food and non-alcoholic beverages rose 2.5%, alcoholic beverages and tobacco increased 5.2%, housing and utilities climbed 4.1%, and health posted a 2.6% rise.
Inflation slowed in clothing and footwear (3.7%), transport (-1.1%), and restaurants and accommodation services (3.4%).
The education services index remained elevated at 8.1%, while financial services held flat at 0.0%.
Food inflation remained at 2.4%, significantly lower than the 4.7% recorded in March 2024.
Primary contributors included meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals (28.1% share or 0.67 percentage points), vegetables, tubers, and pulses (25.1% or 0.60 percentage points), and fish and other seafood (13.1% or 0.32 percentage points).
The food inflation trend showed mixed results, with higher prices in fish and vegetables and lower prices in cereals and sugar.
Among the bottom 30% income households, inflation accelerated from 2.4% in February to 2.8% in March 2025.
This increase was driven by rising costs in food and non-alcoholic beverages (2.4%), housing and utilities (4.5%), and alcoholic beverages and tobacco (6.3%).
At the provincial level, most areas in Western Visayas saw declining inflation except Negros Occidental, where prices rose.
Iloilo posted the highest inflation rate at 4.2%, while Antique experienced slight deflation at -0.1%.
In urban areas, inflation in Iloilo City inched up to 3.9% from 3.7%, while Bacolod City rose to 3.5% from 3.3%.
