Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno expressed optimism on Wednesday inflation could further decline within the government's target of 2-4 percent by the second quarter.

"It should be in the second quarter," Diokno said in his regular weekly forum in Manila when asked when the government sees inflation to fall within its target for this year.

"In fact, we are seeing scenarios that inflation will be at 2 percent in the third quarter," he added.

Inflation in January slowed down to 4.4 percent from 5.1 percent in December.

Last year, inflation rose to 6.7 percent in September and October, the highest in almost a decade.

The government has implemented various interventions to lower the prices of commodities last year amid the rising prices of oil in the world market.

Diokno said the drop in inflation within the government's target could not be felt yet within the first quarter "because we are coming from high inflation."

"5.5 (percent) last December and 4.4 (percent) in January, that's significant drop already (on the inflation). If you look at month-on-month, that's negative already," he explained. Celerina Monte/DMS