Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda (Facebook)

"It gets better from here."

Economist-solon Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda gave this assessment Thursday, Oct. 5 on the reported year-on-year inflation rate of 6.1 percent in September.

Salceda, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, said the September inflation rate was “due to oil and rice price shocks during month” but “is expected to dissipate in the October figures” due to the sharp decline in global oil prices during the end of September and compliance with the rice price ceiling imposed by the President.

“The September inflation figure is due almost entirely to rice price spikes and the global oil price spike. The PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority) collects data on the first five days of the month, and on the 15 to 17th days, so it captured a lot of the speculative rise in global oil prices, but not the sharp declines that followed Sept. 27," he said.

“So, this is a snapshot in time past, and we have to analyze it in that light. The weeks after data collected were entirely better, and we’ll catch that next month,” Salceda added.

“In other words, this is probably the worst inflation rate we will record for the -ber months, and it gets better from here," the Bicolano said.

Salceda added that “The estimates I released to fund managers last month was actually at 6.2 percent, using modelling I’ve used since the 1990s. This inflation is imported.”

Rice prices went up 17.9 percent year-on-year in September, “but world prices of rice also sharply declined on Sept. 27, and are now at their August lows".

“So, the September figures also do not capture the sudden decline in world prices. Correctly, President Marcos has also already lifted the rice price cap under EO 39, as both global and local conditions have since become more manageable,” he explained.

Last Aug. 31, President Marcos imposed a price ceiling for regular milled rice at P41 per kilo, and for well-milled rice is P45 per kilo under Executive Order (EO) No.39.

Marcos has said that the price cap was just a temporary measure.

“In short," Salceda said, "Things have gotten better, and the data didn’t capture it yet because the methodology covers the first half of the month. Expect it captured in the October figures.”