BAGUIO CITY: Purchasing power of the peso in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) dropped to 77 cen-tavos compared to 81 centavos last September 2011 and from its one peso value during the base year of 2006, the National Statistics Office (NSO-CAR) September price-situationer revealed.

NSO-CAR Director Olivia Gulla said that as the region’s purchasing power of peso stands at 77 centavos, it means that the value of goods and services worth 77 centavos in September 2006 are bought at one peso in September 2012.

The value of peso is in the downtrend in all provinces with the highest peso value recorded in Apayao province at 83 centavos (from 87), closely followed by the provinces of Abra and Kalinga with peso value of 81 centavos (from 82) and 80 centavos (from 83), respectively. Benguet province stands at 76 (from 79), and Ifugao province and Mt. Province reported the lowest peso value at 74 centavos (from 82 and 77, respectively), for the same reference period of September of 2012 and 2011.    

The drop in the purchasing power of peso is just normal, Gulla explained saying that it is just in proportion to the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in Cordillera, which from 124 in September of last year increased to 130.4 in September this year.

Consumer Price Index is a 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, Gulla explained.

In general, there was an increase in the CPI of all the provinces due to the stand up in the average prices of goods and services. Of the six provinces, Mt. Province posted the highest price index at 135.6, followed by Benguet and Ifugao at 134.9 and 132.4, respectively. On the other hand, Apayao recorded the lowest at 120.2 in the locality.

Among the commodity groups, Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages reported the highest CPI at 142.4, followed by Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco with 132, while transport with an index of 130.7 ranked third. Communication had the lowest index at 82.9.

The local price situationer is just among the quick-stats that affects everyday life, which the Statistics office provides from the different statistical surveys that they are conducting.

Gulla reiterated her call for the public to support the Philippine Statistical System, in line with their goal to provide an efficient and better statistics for our government planners and policy makers.