THE consumer confidence index or CI, which has never gone positive but which always improved in all post-Christmas surveys since 2007, weakened significantly to negative 23.1 percent in the latest survey conducted by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

According to Deputy BSP Gov. Diwa C. Guinigundo, this might have been an aberration in the sense that the plunge to deeper pessimism in the first-quarter survey was borne of external rather than local developments.

In the fourth quarter of 2010, the CI stood at a much shallow pond averaging negative 8.5 percent, one in which the number of pessimists outnumbered optimists.

Consumers responding to the survey cited the continued increase in the prices of petroleum products, the high cost of goods and services and the rise of household expenses as reasons behind the souring outlook.

This outlook was aggravated by the tensions in countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Guinigundo said.

“The lower current quarter outlook mirrored the weaker sentiment of consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Thailand and Japan due to high fuel prices, as well as in New Zealand and Australia which were hit by the recent natural calamities, as indicated in the countries’ consumer sentiment surveys,” he added.

This development showed in all three indicators the BSP used to track consumer sentiment from survey to survey such as the economic condition of the country, family income and family financial situation as pessimism gripped a rising group of consumers than had been gripped before.

These consumers said their views about their family income and financial situation were dampened by the rising cost of basic commodities, expected high-unemployment rate and low income.

According to Guinigundo, the high-income group posted the highest drop in sentiment about the economic condition of the country.

For both the near term and the next 12 months, the same weaker outlook was observed across all income groups for the three indicators.

Consumers anticipate higher expenses for basic goods and services down the line as consumers spend more money than in the past to chase the same amount of services or goods consumers have spent on in the past.

Consumers who believe now was the best time to buy big-ticket items have declined in number and those who thought the same three months forward have declined in number as well.

“The Filipino consumer has to be told that while all these things seem dour they also have to be told this was not something locally-driven but something driven by events happening outside the country,” Guinigundo said.

He and colleagues at the BSP regularly conduct the consumer survey to get a feel of where consumer sentiment lies and by this method also get a feel as to where the price of goods and services was likely headed down the line.