Inflation drops to 1.8% in March

More admin measures to stabilize prices cited

- By DERCO ROSAL

Increases in consumer prices slowed further to 1.8 percent in March 2025, down from 2.1 percent in February, as food prices eased mainly due to lower rice prices, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported.

March inflation was the slowest in nearly five years, or since May 2020—at the height of the most stringent lockdowns at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic—when the headline rate clocked in at 1.6 percent.

This reversed price movements seen in March 2024, when inflation hit 3.7 percent, which was among the highest rates last year.

For the first three months of the year, the average inflation rate stood at 2.2 percent, falling comfortably within the government's two-to-four-per cent target band of manageable price increases conducive to economic growth.

This first-quarter average was also lower than the 3.3 percent in the same quarter of 2024.

According to the PSA, the decline in overall inflation in March 2025 was mainly driven by the slower annual increase in food and non-alcoholic beverage prices, which eased to 2.2 percent from 2.6 percent in February.

Food inflation continued to ease in March 2025, slowing to 2.3 percent from 2.6 percent in February.

This development was mainly due to the steeper 7.7 percent year-on-year drop in rice prices compared to the previous month's 4.9 contraction.

Claire Dennis S. Mapa, PSA undersecretary and national statistician, said during an April 4 press briefing that the lowest rice price deflation was recorded in March 2020 when rice prices dropped by 8.4 percent.

This was followed by a slight slowdown in the inflation of meat| and other meat products (8.2 percent from 8.8 percent), as well as vegetables and similar produce (6.9 percent from 7.1 percent).

It added that the downtrend in inflation was also driven by the steeper decline in transport costs compared to the previous month.