Urgent concerns

If the government is worried about public discontent that might fuel destabilization, it should focus not on the political opposition but on economic woes.

This is indicated by the results of a survey conducted in the first week of this month by Pulse Asia, which showed that the most urgent concern of the majority of Filipinos was the surge in consumer prices.

The nationwide survey showed that inflation was the main concern of 63 percent of the 1,800 respondents across all socioeconomic classes and geographic areas. This was an increase of 12 points from the 51 percent in June.

Those satisfied with the government’s efforts to address the problem also plummeted from 41 percent in June to just 27 percent in this month’s survey, while disapproval went up from 29 percent to 51.

Besides inflation, the top concerns of Filipinos were increasing workers’ pay (50 percent), reducing poverty (32 percent), creating more jobs (30 percent) and fighting graft and corruption (26 percent). Fighting criminality followed with 23 percent and “increasing peace” 14 percent. Changing the Constitution was the least of the concerns, with just three percent.

Pulse Asia noted that disapproval of the government’s responses to the concerns registered the steepest drops in creating more jobs, increasing workers’ pay, reducing poverty, curbing inflation and fighting corruption.

These are gut issues that also pulled down President Duterte’s approval and trust ratings in the latest surveys, according to pollsters. People may be following reports of political turbulence, but Filipinos are used to this and are unlikely to be distracted from their most urgent concerns.

From these problems arise the kind of public unrest that can destabilize the administration. These concerns cannot be blamed on the political opposition. If the government is worried about destabilization, it must act decisively to address these problems.