MANILA, Philippines – Around 42% of Filipinos disapproved of the Marcos administration’s performance in reining in inflation, according to the results of a Pulse Asia Research, Incorporated survey held in September and released on Thursday, October 6.

Controlling inflation once again emerged as the top urgent national concern of Filipinos in the Pulse Asia survey conducted from September 17 to 21, 2022. It is also the issue that the Marcos government scored the lowest in terms of public approval.

The Pulse Asia survey showed that while the Marcos administration obtained majority public approval for 11 of 13 national concerns, ranging from calamity response to defending the country’s territory, “when it comes to controlling inflation, the only majority urgent national concern, the plurality opinion among Filipino adults (42%) is one of disapproval for the national administration’s performance.”

Pulse Asia said 31% of Filipinos approved of the government’s performance in controlling inflation, while while 27% were undecided.

On government response to poverty reduction, 39% of the respondents said they approved of the Marcos administration’s performance, 35% were undecided, and 26% disapproved.

The government scored the highest in calamity response and controlling the spread of COVID-19, obtaining an approval rating of 78% for both.

In a survey held just barely three months into the new government, the Marcos administration also obtained majority public approval on OFW protection (68%), promoting peace (69%), fighting criminality (67%), enforcing the law ((62%), creating more jobs (59%), fighting graft and corruption (58%), environmental protection (57%), increasing workers’ pay (59%), and defending the country’s territory (52%)

Economic issues top Filipinos’ urgent concerns

Economic issues topped the list of Filipinos’ most urgent concerns.

Majority of adult Filipinos across all geographic areas and socio-economic classes consider the need to control inflation as the national issue that requires the administration’s immediate attention, at 66%. Second on the list was increasing workers’ pay, at 44%.

More than a third of Filipinos also highlighted the urgency of creating more jobs and reducing poverty.

Controlling inflation and increasing workers’ pay remained the top two most urgent concerns that Filipinos had in June and September, according to Pulse Asia’s surveys.

September’s inflation concern at 66% was a 9% increase from the 57% who shared the opinion in June.

Filipinos also placed more urgency in the creation of more jobs. From 29% in June, those who considered it urgent rose to 35%.

Other issues that rose in concern include reducing poverty, fighting graft and corruption in government, addressing criminality, and addressing involuntary hunger.

Urgency eased for issues like enforcing the law on all, promoting peace in the country, reducing taxes, controlling the spread of COVID-19, defending Philippine territory, and protecting the welfare of overseas Filipino workers.

Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the Philippine inflation rate rose to 6.9% in September 2022 – the highest in four years. It was higher than the 6.3% rate in August, and 4.2% in September 2021.

Main sources of acceleration in September inflation include food at 7.4%; housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels at 7.3%; and restaurants and accommodation services at 4.6%.

LOOK: Philippines inflation rate 2019-2022.

*latest figure can only be compared up to 2019 after PSA’s rebasing. Figures from years before 2019 not yet available. pic.twitter.com/21rImqyE8v

— Ralf Rivas (@RalfRivas) October 5, 2022

The survey used face to-face interviews among 1,200 representative adults, 18 years old and above.

The national survey has a ± 2.8% error margin at the 95% confidence level, while subnational estimates for the geographic areas covered in the survey have the following error margins at 95% confidence level: ± 5.7% for Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. – Rappler.com