More Filipinos feel safer now – SWS

More Filipinos said that the safety of their family is better now than six months ago as the annual average of victims of common crimes in the country for 2017 dropped to its record-low at 5.6 percent, the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey result showed. The poll results released Thursday showed that 57 percent of Filipinos nationwide said that they feel safer now than six months ago, while 36 percent said it is the same as before, and six percent said that it is worse now.

Compared with the September 2017 survey, those who said that their family’s safety is better now increased by seven points from 50 percent; those who said it is same as before was unchanged at 36 percent; and those who said that is worse now decreased by eight points from 14 percent.

The proportion of those who said their family safety is better now than six months ago is highest in Mindanao at 71 percent, followed by Metro Manila at 63 percent, Visayas at 59 percent, and Balance Luzon at 47 percent.

In the same survey, the annual average of victims of common crimes in the country for 2017 dropped to its record-low at 5.6 percent, but the numbers of people being victimized by these street crimes has increased within the past six months.

Around 7.1 percent or at least 1.6 million families said that they lost their properties to street robberies, burglars, or carnappers, this is at least 1.3 points higher than the 5.8 percent (estimated 1.3 million) in September 2017.

However, due to the record-low property crime rate of 3.1 percent in June last year, the resulting annual average for 2017 was a record-low 5.6 percent.

This is 2 points below the 7.6 percent annual average in 2016, and 0.6 point below the previous record-low annual average of 6.2 percent in 2015.

The survey found that 0.8 percent or at least 188,000 families have members who were hurt through physical violence within the past six months, this is 0.3 point above the 0.5 percent in September 2017, and the highest since the 0.9 percent in June 2016.