FOOD INFLATION. A wide array of fresh vegetables available at Mega Q Mart in Ermin Garcia Street, Quezon City on Jan. 15, 2024. The price of vegetables was a major contributor in the inflation uptick in Occidental Mindoro in February 2024. (PNA photo by Ben Briones)
MAMBURAO, Occidental Mindoro – Inflation in this El Niño-stricken province rose slightly to 4.2 percent in February from a tamer 3.9 percent the previous month.
In a special release report on Wednesday, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) traced the uptick to the faster rate of price increases of three commodity groups, specifically food and non-alcoholic beverages, transport, and information and communication.
However, the agency said the province’s inflation rate last month was still substantially lower than its 8.7 percent level in February 2023, when inflation surged throughout the country due to supply deficiencies in some heavily-weighted food commodities.
The PSA said inflation in the Mindoro (Occidental and Oriental), Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan (Mimaropa) region was still on a decline.
“Inflation in Mimaropa decelerated to 3.4 percent in February 2024, from 3.6 percent in January 2024. In February 2023, the inflation rate in the region was 9.0 percent,” said Maribel Bernardo, chief statistical specialist at the PSA’s Occidental Mindoro Statistical Office.
The food cluster remained to be the top driver of inflation in this province last month.
Cereals and cereal products; vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses; and meat and other slaughtered land animals were the main contributors to overall inflation in Occidental Mindoro in February.
However, Bernardo said inflationary pressures were tempered by lower inflation in other heavily consumed food items.
“Fish and other seafood, milk and other dairy products, eggs, oils and fats, fruits and nuts, sugar, confectionaries and desserts, and ready-made food and other food products had a decelerated annual growth rate, from January 2024 to February 2024,” she added.
Meanwhile, Emerson Kim Lineses, chief economic development specialist at the National Economic and Development Authority-Mimaropa, said in an earlier interview that the severity and longevity of the ongoing dry spell in Mimaropa will significantly influence inflation in the five-province region.
So far, El Niño’s impact in Mimaropa has been mixed, with Occidental Mindoro experiencing a dry spell that is proving ruinous to crops while food production in its neighboring provinces is far less affected.
For his part, Roberto Galang, dean at the Ateneo de Manila’s John Gokongwei School of Management (JGSOM), said local government units (LGUs) should not delay officially declaring states of calamity in their jurisdictions when the drought takes a turn for the worse.
“It is unfortunate that we are starting to experience these negative effects of El Niño. Unlike typhoons, the long impacts of dry spells are difficult to measure. LGUs need to be more proactive in making these declarations. With a typhoon, the damage is very visible, but with droughts, it takes some time,” he told the Philippine News Agency.
Earlier this week, the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (PDRRMC) here formally recommended to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) or provincial council that the entire province be placed under a state of calamity due mainly to the severe dry spell.
Occidental Mindoro Governor Eduardo Gadiano, who concurrently chairs the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (PDRRMC), said an estimated PHP300 million worth of crops have already been ruined by El Niño while another PHP30 million have been destroyed by an infestation of armyworms (Spodoptera frugiperda). (PNA)
