Aliganga, Junpaolo S.

10 / 16 / 18
BAPS – 1 STAT
101
THE HIGHEST YET
What amazes me is the fact that things then were not as expensive as they are now. A
candy would only cost centavos; a movie ticket for several pennies; the fare would only be less
than 2 or 3 pesos; any kind of food for less than 10 pesos, and many others. Back then, having 50
peso bill was enough for the day. Now, you can only afford regular load to have unli-allnet texts
and calls. Back then, having a hundred peso bill would make anyone feel like he/she can buy all
she/he wants, but now it can only be used to buy chickenjoy and spaghetti in Jollibee or a
McSpicy in McDonalds (not even enough). Back then, 1 kilo of chili would only cost 50 pesos
on average, but now, it costs triple or quadruple its price then, even reaching a shocking 1
thousand price. Everything about this change makes our economic life a challenge—a struggle to
save ourselves from the downward spiral of poverty.
The Philippine Peso Exchange Rate dramatically increased over time. In the 1960s, 1
USD was equivalent to an astonishing 3 Philippine peso. It rose to P3.9 in the mid 60’s then
gradually heightened to P19.97 at the end of 1984 after experiencing numerous appreciations and
depreciations. In the 90’s, it hit the mark of P24.268, which was still deemed a considerable
equivalence compared to its current value. However, in the early 2000’s, it continued to swell to
P44.14, almost double its value the prior decade. From then on, the rate had unceasingly
increased, reaching the 50 peso mark the following years.
This exchange rate of peso has something to do with inflation. In one’s economic life,
prices, whether we like or not, are rising and continue to do so due to the many factors that affect
each other such as cost of materials, cost of labor, productivity, taxes, exchange rates, growing
domestic economy, a neighboring economy rising, falling interest rates, buying government
bonds, and lastly the printing of money. Imagine if all the things that were mentioned above were
stable over time, should we have less problems, so to speak. However, due to the impermanence
of these underlying phenomena, it makes inflation an inevitable outcome in every economy.
Recently, statistics show the comparative graph of inflation rates among ASEAN
countries: Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Singapore. The research
focused its parameters in the year 2014 onwards until present. In the year 2014, Indonesia had
the highest inflation rate with Singapore having the lowest among the six, and Philippines having
only considerable low rate of inflation with rough estimate of 3.8%. The graph shows the
instability of inflation in every country as the rates go high or low at different times of the years.
At present, Singapore remains stable in between 2% and -2%, as the rate is minimized and
mitigated in an astounding fashion. However, the Philippines has won a spot in the first—with a
nine-year high inflation rate, spiking to a whopping 6.4% as of July 2018.
This is a downer for most of the Filipinos who are below the poverty line. There are
others who can pretty much keep up and tolerate the increase in prices, but there are also who
cannot. There are Filipino families that cannot even afford basic necessities such as food,
clothing, and such, not to mention some families that have income but just enough or even
lacking for the day. Although some may say they aren’t affected by the dramatic increase of
inflation rate, all of us are—for some, subtle; and for some, immense. Although surprising, this is
not a shocking news to economists and economic managers. They are doing the best they can to
lessen the phenomenon through “decisively halting TRAIN’s petroleum tax hikes for the
following years, further raising interest rates and hastening the importation and distribution of
rice nationwide”.
With this knowledge of inflation rate, it would redound to the fact that research plays a
vital role in determining the effect of inflation to the Filipinos in the different classes—the upper,
middle, and lower. Further research would focus on first, the perception of the Filipinos with
regards to their self-report of being poor and second, the inflation rate as the key determinant of
the people’s response such as their behaviors with regards to their own money. In approximately
100 million Filipinos, only 10 million of them will be regarded as the sample. Hence, the
variables essential to the study would be the perceptions, the economic behaviors (spending and
saving money) and their social status at the height of socioeconomic crisis. Moreover, the results
that will be yielded through this study should advance further knowledge on the issue at hand.
The Philippine inflation rate may be at its highest yet, but it does not necessarily blur our
hope of overcoming such crisis. For the increase and the decline are normal, and what matters is
how we respond to the inevitable. As the famous Youtube educational video says, “In the end,
we may have to accept that inflation is a bit like the weather or our own moods; something that’s
inherently rather unstable; something whose ups and downs we must endure as we try to mitigate
the extremes. Ultimately, learning to live with inflation belongs to wisdom.”