Eastern visayas: Eastern Visayas posted an 8.5 percent inflation rate in April 2026, driven largely by rising oil prices, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported Tuesday.
According to Philippines News Agency, the latest figure surpassed the inflation rate recorded after Super Typhoon Yolanda in 2013, marking the highest price increase in the region since March 2009, as reported by PSA Eastern Visayas Regional Director Wilma Perante. Eastern Visayas previously registered its highest annual average inflation rate in March 2009 at 10.4 percent. Months after Yolanda's devastation, the region logged an 8.3 percent inflation rate in February 2014.
Perante noted that the sharp increase in April was primarily due to faster inflation in the transport sector, which was affected by a series of oil price hikes linked to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The region's inflation rate is also higher than the national level's 7.2 percent. Transport inflation accelerated to 26.4 percent in April from 9.4 percent in March. Food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation rose to 8.1 percent from 5.4 percent in the previous month.
"The upward trend in the regional food inflation in April 2026 was mainly driven by rice, which recorded a 13.3-percent inflation rate from 5.8 percent in March 2026," Perante said during a press briefing. Higher inflation rates were also observed in fish and other seafood, fruits and nuts, vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas, and corn.
PSA also reported faster inflation in housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels, which climbed to 7.1 percent from 3 percent in March. Restaurants and accommodation services posted higher inflation at 7 percent, compared to 4 percent in the previous month.
Among the region's six provinces, Samar registered the highest inflation rate at 13.5 percent, up from 7.6 percent in March. Biliran recorded 10.7 percent (up from 5.7 percent); Eastern Samar, 9 percent (up from 4.3 percent); Northern Samar, 8.7 percent (up from 5.7 percent); Southern Leyte, 8.2 percent (up from 2.9 percent); and Leyte 6.5 percent (up from 3.8 percent). Tacloban City, the region's lone highly urbanized city, posted a 5.9 percent inflation rate in April, higher than the 4.1 percent recorded in March.
The inflation rate measures the annual rate of change in the consumer price index. A lower inflation rate does not mean prices are falling, but rather that prices are increasing at a slower pace.
