Volume of visitors accessing PSA website delayed inflation report

Technical difficulties encountered by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) website on Wednesday delayed the release of official inflation data for August.

National Statistician Lisa Grace Bersales told GMA News Online that their website was not able to accommodate the number of viewers waiting for the report.

“Yes ... the inflation report was delayed because of technical problems with our website. It could not cope with the volume of those accessing it,” she said.

The inflation report was expected at 9:00 a.m., but was actually uploaded on the PSA website more than an hour later.

As of 10:09 am, @PSAgovph has yet to release August inflation figures. Data was expected at 9:00 a.m.

The @BangkoSentral earlier announced a forecast of 5.9%, while the @DOF_PH expects 5.8%.

If realized, both figures would be the highest since the 6.6% in March 2009. @gmanews

— Jon Viktor Cabuenas (@jvdcabuenas) September 5, 2018

The report was actually released at 10:10 a.m. It showed that inflation accelerated by 6.4 percent in August, the fastest in over nine years since it came in at 6.6 percent in March 2009.

“My team is now debriefing ... and we will take necessary action so that this does not happen again,” Bersales said.

Aside from inflation, the PSA also released other reports that included the Labor Force Survey results for July.

“This also contributed to clogging,” Bersales said. —VDS, GMA News