Inflation Rate for Zambales’ Bottom 30% Income Households Declines Further to -1.3 Percent

Zambales’ inflation rate for the bottom 30 percent income households further declined to -1.3 percent in April 2025, from -0.9 percent in March 2025. This indicates a month-on-month decrease of 0.4 percentage points, and a year-on-year drop of 5.8 percentage points from April 2024. (Figure 1)

Zambales ranked second among provinces in Central Luzon with the lowest inflation rate for the bottom 30 percent income households in April 2025. Nueva Ecija recorded the lowest rate at    -1.9 percent, followed by Zambales at -1.3 percent. On the other hand, Bulacan posted the highest inflation rate at 2.4 percent, followed by Pampanga at 2.3 percent and Olongapo City at 2.1 percent. (Figure 2).

Furthermore, the headline inflation rate for the bottom 30 percent income households in Central Luzon declined from 1.7 percent in March 2025 to 0.4 percent in April 2025.

Major Commodity Groups Drive Further Decline in Overall Inflation Rate in April 2025

The overall inflation rate in April 2025 declined primarily due to the slower year-on-year growth rates of three major commodity groups. Most notably, the index for Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages dropped from 0.9 percent in March 2025 to 0.5 percent in April 2025. Similarly, the index for Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuels continued to fall, decreasing from -17.9 percent to -20.0 percent. In addition, the Transport index sustained its downward trend, recording a slower annual decline of -2.0 percent in April 2025 compared to -1.3 percent in the previous month. (Table 1)

On the other hand, faster annual increments were observed in the following commodity groups:
• Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco: 2.1 percent (from 1.5 percent)
• Clothing and Footwear: 1.4 percent (from 1.2 percent)
• Furnishings, Household Equipment, and Routine Household Maintenance: 1.3 percent (from 1.0 percent)
• Health: 0.5 percent (from 0.4 percent)
• Personal Care and Miscellaneous Goods and Services: 1.9 percent (from 1.5 percent)

Meanwhile, the indices for Information and Communication (0.0%), Recreation, Sport and Culture (3.7%), Education Services (1.3%), Restaurants and Accommodation Services (0.9%), and Financial Services (0.0%) maintained their previous month’s inflation rates.

Main Contributors to the April 2025 Overall Inflation in Zambales

The following commodity groups were the top contributors to the April 2025 overall inflation for the bottom 30% income households in Zambales:

• Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuels: 143.0 percent share, contributing 185.90 percentage points
• Transport: 10.2 percent share, contributing 13.26 percentage points

Food Inflation

The inflation rate in the provincial food index decelerated to 0.4 percent in April 2025 from 0.8 percent in March 2025.

Main Drivers to the Downward Trend of the April 2025 Food Inflation in Zambales

The deceleration of food inflation in April 2025 was mainly attributed to the slower year-on-year growth in several food commodity groups. These include:

• Cereals and Cereal Products: Further decline to -6.1 percent, down from -4.5 percent in March 2025
• Vegetables, Tubers, Plantains, Cooking Bananas, and Pulses: Slowed to 3.6 percent, down from 6.5 percent
• Meat and Other Parts of Slaughtered Land Animals: Decreased to 6.2 percent, from 8.2 percent in March 2025 (Table 2)

Additionally, slower increments were recorded in the following indices:
• Milk, Other Dairy Products, and Eggs: 1.9 percent (from 2.6 percent)
• Sugar, Confectionery, and Desserts: 0.5 percent (from 1.2 percent)

On the other hand, faster annual increments were observed in the following indices:
• Fish and Other Seafood: 7.9 percent (from 3.7 percent)
• Oils and Fats: 3.3 percent (from 1.7 percent)
• Fruits and Nuts: 3.1 percent (from -2.9 percent)

Relative to the April 2025 inflation rates for the bottom 30 percent income households, all provinces and Highly Urbanized Cities (HUCs) in the region recorded lower inflation rates compared to their respective previous months’ inflation rates, except for Olongapo City, which recorded an increase to 2.1 percent from 2.0 percent in March 2025, and Bulacan, which retained its inflation rate at 2.4 percent in April 2025.

Among the provinces and Highly Urbanized Cities (HUCs) in the region, Bulacan recorded the highest inflation rate for the bottom 30 percent income households at 2.4 percent, followed by Pampanga at 2.3 percent. In contrast, Nueva Ecija recorded the lowest inflation rate at -1.9 percent. Furthermore, Nueva Ecija experienced the highest decrease in inflation, with a 2.4 percentage point difference from the previous month’s inflation rate of 0.5 percent. Pampanga followed closely with a 1.8 percentage point decrease, from 4.1 percent in March 2025. (Figure 2)

NORMAN L. BUNDALIAN
Chief Statistical Specialist

TECHNICAL NOTES

This Special Release presents the results of the Survey of Retail Prices of Commodities and Services for the Generation of Consumer Price Index (CPI) conducted in April 2025.

CPI
The CPI is an indicator of the change in the average retail prices of a fixed basket of goods and services commonly purchased by households for their day-to-day consumption relative to a base year.

Uses of the CPI

As an indicator, the CPI is most widely used in the calculation of the inflation rate and purchasing power of the peso. It is a major statistical series used for economic analysis and as monitoring indicator of government economic policy.

The CPI is also used as a deflator to express value series in real terms, which is, measuring the change in actual volume of transaction by removing the effects of price changes. Another major importance of the CPI is its use as basis to adjust wages in labor management contracts as well as pensions and retirement benefits. The CPI also serves as inputs in wage adjustments through the collective bargaining agreements.

Components of the CPI

a. Base Period
This is a reference date or simply a convenient benchmark to which a continuous series of index numbers can be related. Since the CPI measures the average changes in the retail prices of a fixed basket of goods, it is necessary to compare the movement in previous years back to a reference date at which the index is taken as equal to 100.
The present series of CPI is rebased from base year 2012 to base year 2018.

b. Market Basket
Market basket refers to a sample of goods and services commonly purchased by the households.

The market basket for the CPI for All Income Households is updated using the results of the 2021 Survey of Key Informants (SKI). The survey, which was undertaken in March 2021, was conducted nationwide to store managers, sellers, or proprietors, to obtain information on the most commonly purchased goods and availed of services by the households.

The commodities included in the 2018-based CPI market basket are the modal commodities which were considered as the most commonly purchased/availed of commodities by the households.

The commodities in the 2018-based CPI market basket are grouped/classified according to the 2020 Philippine Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (PCOICOP) which is based on the United Nations COICOP. Meanwhile, the commodities in the 2012-based CPI market basket used the 2009 PCOICOP version of classification of commodities.

Table A below presents the comparison of the commodity classification based on 2009 and 2020 PCOICOP which are adopted in the 2012-based and 2018-based CPI market baskets, respectively.

c. Weighting System
The weights for the 2018-based CPI were derived from the expenditure data of the 2018 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES). The weight for each commodity/group of commodities is the proportion of the expenditure of the expenditure of commodity/group of commodities to the total national expenditure. The sum of the weights of the commodity groups at the national level is equal to 100.

d. Geographic Coverage
CPI values are computed at the national, regional, and provincial levels, for selected cities. A separate CPI for NCR is also computed.

Inflation Rate
The inflation rate (IR) is the annual or monthly rate of change of the CPI in percent. It is interpreted in terms of declining purchasing power of money.