Inflation fell 4.9 percent in October from 6.1 percent in September due to lower food prices, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Tuesday.

The heavily-weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages index went down to 7 percent from 9.7 percent in September.

In this index, vegetables and tubers led the way as it showed an inflation rate of 11.9 percent from 29.6 percent.

Year-to-date inflation averaged 6.4 percent.

In a press briefing, PSA Undersecretary Dennis Mapa said in the coming months, the inflation rate will continue to decline if there are no ''supply shocks''.

“If we don’t see any supply shocks, our view is that the inflation rate will go down. Although we are seeing some threats of price increases in milk, dairy products, and eggs. Their prices are going up although their weight in the basket is not substantial. The price of rice seems to be going down,” Mapa said.

Mapa said month-on-month, rice prices are also decreasing.

For regular milled rice, the average price nationwide went down from 17.9 percent in September to 13.9 percent in October.

Mapa said the top contributor to inflation was food, which takes up 2.5 percentage points out of the 4.9 percent.

The top three food products that contributed to inflation were rice, vegetables and fish by one percentage point, 0.32 percentage points, and 0.3 percentage points respectively.

Food inflation decreased from 10 percent in September to 7.1 percent in October. Jaspearl Tan/DMS