63% of Pinoys want gov’t to address inflation

AMID the soaring prices of basic consumer goods, more Filipinos are expressing concern regarding inflation that must be immediately addressed by the Duterte admin­istration, the Pulse Asia “Ulat ng Bayan” survey conducted from Sept. 1 to 7 among 1,800 respon­dents found out.

Sixty-three percent of Filipinos said inflation is an issue that the Duterte administration must im­mediately address.

It is also the predominant opin­ion in all geographic areas and socio-economic classes (53 to 66 percent and 52 to 65 percent, re­spectively).

Fifty percent consider the need to increase the pay of workers as an urgent national concern – a sentiment expressed by majori­ties in Metro Manila (55 percent), Visayas (59 percent), and upper-to-middle Class ABC (52 percent).

Other urgent national concerns include poverty reduction (32 per­cent), job creation (30 percent), fighting graft and corruption in government (26 percent), com­bating criminality (23 percent), promoting peace (14 percent), protecting the environment (13 percent), reducing the amount of taxes paid by citizens (12 per­cent), and enforcing the rule of law (11 percent).

In the survey, Filipinos were least concerned about the welfare of overseas Filipino workers (six percent), rapid population growth (six percent), terrorism (five per­cent), national territorial integrity (5 percent), and Charter change (three percent).

None of these issues were considered urgent by a majority across geographic areas and so­cio-economic groupings.

Pulse Asia pointed out that Fili­pinos’ sense of urgency as far as the 15 national issues included in the survey were concerned is practically constant during the pe­riod June to September 2018.

The only notable changes were the increase in the level of concern regarding inflation (+12 percent­age points) and the decline in the level of concern about job creation (-9 percentage points).

It added that year-on-year, public concern became more pro­nounced when it comes to such issues as workers’ pay (+8 per­centage points) and inflation (+13 percentage points) while it eased in relation to the issues of peace (-7 percentage points) and crimi­nality (-13 percentage points).

Also during the survey, Pulse Asia found out that although the Duterte administration enjoyed majority approval ratings on 10 out of the 12 issues on which its performance is evaluated in this survey, its approval ratings de­clined across all 12 issues during the period June to September 2018. (Ellalyn V. Ruiz)