The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is preparing to shift the base year for calculating inflation to 2025 to better reflect current consumer spending habits, National Statistician Claire Dennis Mapa said Thursday.
The rebasing of the consumer price index (CPI) from the 2018 benchmark is underway, Mapa told reporters during a press briefing.
Technical staff are identifying adjustments to the weights of items within the CPI basket using data from the 2025 Family Income and Expenditures Survey (FIES), following the conclusion of the survey’s second round in January.
“The data is being processed. The procedure there is we look at the expenditure side of the households, if they have adjustments in terms of weights. And from there, we do again our commodity outlet surveys and of course the retail price,” Mapa said.
The agency is also discussing a potential adjustment to the reference year for national accounts, though Mapa noted that inflation data remains the priority. The move would mark the latest update after the benchmark year for measuring inflation and gross domestic product was changed to 2018 during 2020 and 2022.
The official announcement of the adjustments depends on the release of the FIES results, which Mapa expects by early next year.
“Usually, what happens is we wait for this round of FIES to come out, maybe by January. January 2027 may be the [release of the] first report, but of course, it will be backcasted to have a comparison,” Mapa said.
