*  2012 Base Year

Rationale for Rebasing the CPI from 2006 to 2012

Rebasing is necessary when the basket of the reference year no longer represents what is commonly purchased by the households. The CPI then becomes irrelevant and would tend to give wrong market signals. The CPI is an indicator that derives its usefulness from its representation of how much a typical market basket behaves over a specific period of time.

Economic, social and technological changes may have influenced Filipinos’ tastes and preferences and these, in effect may have resulted in changes in the consumption patterns of the population. As household expenditure patterns vary (they tend to spend less on some items and more on others), weights are used to ensure that the CPI reflects the relative importance of each item or group of items in the market basket. The weights are expressed as a proportion of household expenditure for an item to the total national expenditure.

The rebasing of the CPI from 2006 to 2012 is in consonance with the recommendation of the PSA Board in its Resolution No. 01 series of 2017-146 (Approving the Synchronized Rebasing of Price Indices to Base Year 2006 and every six (6) years thereafter) to reflect the latest composition of goods and services consumed and availed of by households across provinces of the country.

The main data source of consumption pattern (CPI weights) for this latest rebasing was the 2012 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES). Meanwhile, the Survey of Key Informants was conducted from 07 October to 15 November 2013 to determine the commodities that will form the market basket for the 2012-based CPI.