The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported price hikes for several commodities like rice and cooking oil in the early days of April.

The PSA said the average retail price of a kilogram of regular milled rice increased to P51.39 between April 1 and 5, from the previous month's prices of P51.21 and P51.14.

The average cost for a fresh pork kasim also rose to P336.42 per kilogram in early April, higher than its previous average retail prices of P333.64 and P331.80.

A kilogram of hawaiian ginger also swelled during the period, costing consumers P130.39 per kilogram from the previous prices of P121.62 and P119.31.

Cooking oil also noted a significant increase, incurring an average retail price of P156.78 per liter during the period, up from P154.75 and PhP 154.96 in March.

On the other hand, a kilogram of tomato was reported to have a decline in price with an average price of P71.80 during the first phase of April 2024, down from previous records P80.40 and P88.55.

A kilogram of galunggong was also lower during the period at P204.05 compared to P207.45 P213.70 recorded previously, while mango carabao had an average retail price of P157.62 per kilogram, lower than the P166.03 and P168.13 recorded in March.

Palay output seen to increase

Meanwhile, the average farmgate price of palay also registered year-on-year increase of 32 percent in March at P24.52 per kilogram, from P18.57 in the same month last year.

This comes after rice inflation hits 24.4 percent during the month from 23.7 percent — almost toppling the comparable high record of 24.6 percent readout in February 2009.

PSA Undersecretary Claire Dennis S. Mapa earlier said that some rice farmlands reported damages in their irrigation systems, leading to low rice production but assured some farms to have better production.

Based on the PSA data, palay production is seen to increase to 4.82 million metric tons between January and March or by 0.8 percent from the output of 4.78 million metric tons in the same period last year.

However, the area planted for rice may decrease by 0.1 percent to 1.17 million hectares, while yield per hectare may improve 1.0 percent to 4.10 metric tons from 4.06 metric tons recorded last year.

The PSA said that about 677.34 thousand hectares or 57.7 percent of 1.17 million hectares updated harvest area of standing crop have been harvested as of March, translating to palay output of 2.74 million metric tons.

Of the 497.52 thousand hectares of area remaining to be harvested, 8.8 percent were at the reproductive stage and 91.2 percent were at the maturing stage.