Livelihood tops the people’s agenda

“LIVELIHOOD” (PROGRAMANG pangkabuhayan) clearly tops the people’s initial agenda for the attention of President Aquino, according to a report from the June 25-28, 2010 Social Weather Survey released last Monday.

When asked to choose up to three issues for the new President to focus on, from a displayed-list of 20 (that had been culled from promises made by presidential candidates), the 43 percent who chose livelihood programs were far more than the 32.6 percent who said “jobs” (hanapbuhay) and the 32.5 percent who said “prices of basic commodities.”

The issues of jobs and general inflation are equally important to the people. Yet neither jobs nor inflation is as important as livelihood. I put here the Filipino terms used in the survey to show that livelihood and jobs are distinct, though related. “Livelihood” is more encompassing, going beyond having paid employment or a specific occupation.

Note that the first three issues of livelihood, jobs and inflation all concern economic well-being. The next three issues, each with roughly 25 percent, were “helping farmers,” “prices of medicines,” and “graft and corruption.” Thus graft and corruption is, at best, tied for fourth place in the people’s priorities.

There were only four other responses in double-digits, namely (with percentages in parentheses): “affordable housing” (21), “developing the economy” (18), “building classrooms” (16), and “women’s rights” (10).

The total of the percentages for all the 20 issues was 285. Therefore the average number of responses was 2.85, i.e., almost everyone recommended three, and hardly anyone recommended only one or two, issues for the President. Thus hewing to a single-issue agenda would definitely not be faithful to the wishes of those whom P-Noy has called his “bosses.”

Priorities by class and education. The listing of priorities above is for the nation in general. For college graduates in particular, however, graft and corruption is the top priority, after which come livelihood, medicine-prices, and jobs in that order.

For all non-college-graduates, the top priority is livelihood. Their second priority depends on level of education: high school graduates said jobs, elementary graduates said inflation, and non-elementary graduates said helping farmers.

For the middle-to-upper ABC classes, the top priority is general inflation, the second is graft and corruption, and the third is livelihood. On the other hand, for the masa D and very poor E classes, the priorities are about the same as those of the nation.

Incidentally, ABC people are much fewer (8.6 percent of the June 2010 sample) than the college graduate population (14.4 percent). If it were not for the very many college graduates among the Ds or masa, the people’s priority for graft and corruption would be even lower.

Priorities by area. It is only in Metro Manila where the top priority is jobs, unlike in the three other major areas, where the top priority is livelihood. Next in Metro Manila are housing, graft and corruption, inflation, and developing the economy, with livelihood only in sixth place.

“Jobs” has second priority in the Balance of Luzon, only fifth priority in the Visayas, and only seventh priority in Mindanao. The Balance of Luzon priorities are similar to those of the nation.

In the Visayas, second priority is inflation, followed by prices of medicines and graft and corruption.

In Mindanao, second priority is helping farmers, with third priority for general inflation. Medicine-prices and graft and corruption are tied for fourth.

Pervasiveness of self-employment. The people’s rationale for prioritizing livelihood over jobs is understandable, given their distribution by work status.

In the June 2010 SWS survey of adults, 53.6 percent had work, 13.8 percent were looking for work, and the balance of 32.6 percent were not in the labor force, i.e., neither working nor looking for work. The unemployment rate was a disturbing 20.5 percent of the voting-age labor force.

Among those at work, 58 percent are self-employed and 1 percent are unpaid family workers. Among the self-employed, the great majority have non-registered, or informal, enterprises. Since another 7 percent of those at work are paid employees in informal enterprises, self/family-employment is responsible for 58 + 1 + 7 = 66 percent of those at work.

Thus conventional job-holders are but a minority, consisting of formal private employees (26 percent) and government employees (8 percent).

Only formal private employees put priority on jobs before livelihood as issues for P-Noy to tackle. Government employees put priority first on livelihood, second on helping farmers and third on graft and corruption. Informal employees put priority first on livelihood, second on inflation, and third on jobs.

The top three priorities of the informal self-employed, and also of the unemployed, are like the national priorities. The formal self-employed put priority first on livelihood, second on helping farmers and third on jobs. Those not in the labor force (housewives, students, retired persons) put priority first on livelihood, second on inflation, and third on jobs. For the tiny group of unpaid workers, first priority was graft and corruption, second was medicine-prices, and only third was jobs.

Impounding colorum vehicles cost the drivers their livelihoods, not formal jobs. But are colorums more to blame than private cars for the heavy traffic?

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Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.