Picking president more important than picking city mayor
In disaster-stricken Tacloban City in Leyte, choosing the next president is more important to voters than picking the city’s next chief executive.
Nearly three years after the devastation of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in Tacloban City, impoverished voters of the city said that they have to be more insightful in choosing the country’s next president.
Preliminary findings of the “Vote of the Poor” study conducted by a team of Ateneo de Manila University researchers showed that 60 percent of total 30 key respondents in the said city said that it is more important to choose the next president than the next city mayor.
Only 13.3 percent said that it is more important to choose the next city mayor over the president while 26.7 percent of the respondents said that choosing both officials are equally important.
The study has classified impoverished voters in Tacloban City as “disaster poor,” meaning the kind of poverty being experienced by community members was brought about by disasters.
When asked on who understands their needs better, an overwhelming 93.3 percent of Tacloban City respondents said that it is the mayor rather than the president.
It was also shown that respondents from the disaster poor in Tacloban do not consider the acceptance of money from politicians as tantamount to selling their vote.
For the May 9 local elections, three candidates are running for mayor: Golda Hilda Cabudoy, Neil Glova and Cristina Romualdez.
Government response in the aftermath of the supertyphoon was heavily criticized and has since hounded administration bet Manuel “Mar” Roxas in his attempt to win the presidency as he was the sitting interior secretary when the disaster struck.
The study on the voter perception and attitudes of poor voters, which utilized data from a nationwide Social Weather Stations poll and in-depth interviews with 119 respondents, is led by Filomeno Aguilar, PhD, with co-investigators Jose Jowel Canuday, PhD; Lisandro Claudio, PhD; and Jayeel Cornelio, PhD. RAM
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