Palace won’t let guard down despite 3-year low inflation

In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the government would not be complacent despite the continued drop in prices of basic commodities. (File Photo: Office of the Presidential Spokesperson/Facebook)

MANILA — The Duterte administration will remain vigilant in managing the growth in consumer prices, even after the country’s inflation in October eased to its lowest level in over three years, Malacañang said Tuesday.

In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the government would not be complacent despite the continued drop in prices of basic commodities.

“This should be good news to all Filipinos, especially to President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s doubters or cynics unless they see it otherwise, which would then reveal that what they are solely interested in is for this administration to fail,” the Palace official said.

“As inflation continues to drop, the current government will continue to not let its guard down in monitoring the prices of basic commodities, especially now that we are in the ‘ber’ months, approaching Christmas season,” he added.

On Tuesday, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported the increase in prices of basic goods and services in October was at its slowest pace in over three years after it further eased to 0.8 percent from September 2019’s 0.9 percent.

The state statistics agency said the latest inflation rate was the lowest since May 2016’s 0.9 percent.

The latest reading fell within the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ 0.5 percent to 1.3 percent forecast for the month.

The PSA noted that the downtrend of last month’s inflation was driven by the 0.9 percent annual drop in the heavily-weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages index.

Panelo gave Duterte’s economic team credit for the three-year low inflation rate in October.

He also assured the public that the country’s economic managers would continue exhausting efforts to further ease the headline inflation, in an effort to give Filipinos a “comfortable life.”

“Bringing a comfortable life for all Filipinos, which includes taming inflation, is the foremost socioeconomic goal of the Duterte administration,” Panelo said.

“This positive development is a testament that PRRD’s (President Rodrigo Roa Duterte) strong political will, together with his economic team’s sound and working macroeconomic policies and measures, contributed to the downward trend of prices and goods,” he added.