Pulse Asia: More Filipinos concerned about commodity prices, workers’ wages

by Jhoanna Ballaran, Inquirer, Oct 20, 2017

Controlling prices of commodities, increasing workers’ wages, and fighting criminality are the top three urgent concerns of Filipinos, according to the latest result of Pulse Asia’s September 2017 Ulat ng Bayan survey released on Friday.

One out of every two Filipinos believes that among their national concerns, the need to control the rise in the prices of commodities should be on the top priorities of the Duterte administration. It increased 8-percentage points from 42 percent in June and 13 percentage points from September last year.

The concern in commodity prices is closely followed by increasing the workers’ pay at 42 percent, and fighting criminality at 36 percent.

Filipinos also believe that creating more jobs (32 percent), fighting corruption in the government (28 percent), and reducing poverty (28 percent) should be addressed by the administration.

At the local level, the population believes that bad roads (16 percent), flooding (11 percent), and illegal drug use (10.2 percent) are the most pressing issues the government needs to address.

These were followed by waste management (7.5 percent), unemployment (6.5 percent), and irrigation services (5.1 percent).

The survey was conducted from September 24 to 30, during the height of the Senate blue ribbon committee’s hearing on the P6.4-billion drug smuggling scandal. The survey respondents-interviewees covered 1,200 adults nationwide.

It has a plus-minus 3 percent error margin at the 95-percent confidence level.