Gov’t gets high score on fight against crime, but low on poverty

While the Duterte administration got a high approval scores in fighting criminality, it got low ratings on economic issues deemed urgent by Filipinos, a recent Pulse Asia survey showed.

Only five out of 10 Filipinos approved of the Duterte administration’s performance in reducing poverty, while 45 percent of respondents expressed approval on its efforts to control inflation.

Mr. Duterte, who has waged war on crime since he took office in July last year, got the highest approval score in fighting criminality (79 percent).

Pulse Asia noted that there were no significant movements in the administration’s performance ratings between December 2016 and March 2017, except for the decline in the approval rating for its efforts to defend territorial integrity which was down by 8 percentage points to 57 percent (from 65 percent).

On Mar. 13, President Duterte said in a press conference that he could understand that China was claiming Benham Rise and added that he did not want to “fight about ownership or sovereignty at this time because things are going great for my country.”

Other national issues that the government got a majority approval rating were response to calamity (77 percent), protecting the welfare of overseas Filipino workers (71 percent), fighting graft and corruption (70 percent), increasing peace in the country (69 percent), stopping environmental degradation (68 percent), enforcing the law (68 percent), creating more jobs (58 percent) and increasing the pay of workers (55 percent.)

But issues related to economy—increasing workers’ pay, inflation and job creation—were considered by Filipinos to be their most urgent national concern in March, the same survey said.

The survey, conducted from Mar. 15 to 20, asked 1,200 Filipinos aged 18 and above using face-to-face interviews to choose three urgent concerns from the list provided. They were also allowed to add other concerns not on the list.

Increasing the pay of workers remained the most urgent national concern by 43 percent of respondents, down by 2 percentage points from December 2016.

The next two economic concerns deemed most urgent had the highest percentage increases were controlling inflation, up by 7 percentage points to 41 percent (from 34 percent), and creating more jobs, up by 8 percentage points to 39 percent (from 31 percent).—INQUIRER RESEARCH