Skip to main content

Filipinos want next president to curb prices and enforce the law -- Pulse Asia

By JESUS F. LLANTO
abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak

Most Filipinos think that the next president should be pro-poor and should focus on preventing the soaring prices of the basic commodities and reducing poverty, a survey by polling firm Pulse Asia showed.

The Ulat ng Bayan Survey held from July 1-14, 2008 showed that almost four out of 10 (39%) Filipinos thinks that being pro-poor is the most important characteristic the next president should possess.

Aside from being pro-poor, the next president, the survey showed, should be able to enforce law equally on influential as well as ordinary people (35%) and be knowledgeable in the management of government (34%). Respondents also think that the next president should be trustworthy (29%) and fight anomalies in the government (28%)



Being pro-poor is cited as the most important characteristic of the next president by 41% of respondents from Luzon and 50% of respondents from Mindanao.

Respondents from the National Capital Region, however, said the most important quality of the next president is being able to enforce the law equally on influential and ordinary people (43%) while those from the Visayas being knowledgeable in managing the government (47%) is the most important.

Popularity, however, occupied the last spot in the list of most important characteristics of the future president. Only 1 percent thinks that being popular is the most important attribute of the next president should possess.

Other characteristics that are cited important by only few respondents include having integrity and good reputation (8%), being able to produce concrete results (8%), and having a good family background or lineage (3%).

Rising prices and poverty

Meanwhile, respondents also think that the next president should focus immediately on problems like rising prices and poverty reduction.

Nearly seven out of 10 (67%) believe that the next president should focus on preventing rapid increase in prices of basic necessities while almost half of the them (49%) think that reducing the great poverty of many Filipinos should be the immediate focus of the future president.

Consumer prices have reached double-digit levels and in July it soared to 12.2 percent, the highest since December 1991.

Meanwhile, data from the National Statistical Coordination Board showed that poverty incidence in the Philippines worsened from 2003 to 2006 and that there are 4.7 million families or 27.6 million Filipinos who are classified as poor.

Other top concerns cited by respondents include eradicating widespread graft and corruption in the government (43%), creating sufficient jobs or livelihood (42%) and curbing widespread criminality (28).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Five Poems by Danton Remoto

In the Graveyard Danton Remoto The walls round the graveyard Are ancient and cracked. The moss is too thick they look dark. The paint on my grandfather’s tomb Has the color of bone. Two yellow candles we lighted, Then we uttered our prayers. On my left, somebody’s skull Stares back at me: a black Nothingness in the eyes. The graveyard smells of dust Finer than the pore of one’s skin— Dust mixed with milk gone sour. We are about to depart When a black cat darts Across our path, quickly, With a rat still quivering In its mouth. * Immigration Border Crossing (From Sadao, Thailand to Bukit Changloon, Malaysia) Danton Remoto On their faces that betray No emotion You can read the unspoken Questions: Are you really A Filipino? Why is your skin Not the color of padi ? Your eyes, Why are they slanted Like the ones Who eat babi ? And your palms, Why are there no callouses Layered like th...

A mansion of many languages

BY DANTON REMOTO, abs-sbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 10/16/2008 1:00 AM REMOTE CONTROL In 1977, my mentor, the National Artist for Literature and Theater Rolando S. Tinio, said: “It is too simple-minded to suppose that enthusiasm for Filipino as lingua franca and national language of the country necessarily involves the elimination of English usage or training for it in schools. Proficiency in English provides us with all the advantages that champions of English say it does – access to the vast fund of culture expressed in it, mobility in various spheres of the international scene, especially those dominated by the English-speaking Americans, participation in a quality of modern life of which some features may be assimilated by us with great advantage. Linguistic nationalism does not imply cultural chauvinism. Nobody wants to go back to the mountains. The essential Filipino is not the center of an onion one gets at by peeling off layer after layer of vegetable skin. One’s experience with onio...

Taboan: Philippine Writers' Festival 2009

By John Iremil E. Teodoro, Contributor The Daily Tribune 02/26/2009 A happy and historical gathering of wordsmiths with phallocentric and Manila-centric overtones *** This is from my friend, the excellent poet and critic John Iremil Teodoro, who writes from the magical island of Panay. I wish I have his energy, his passion and his time to write. Writing needs necessary leisure. But this budding, bading politician has shifted his directions. On this day alone, I have to attend not one, not two, but three political meetings. And there goes that new poem out of the window. Sigh. *** According to Ricardo de Ungria, a poet of the first magnitude and the director of Taboan: The Philippine International Writers Festival 2009, “the original idea was for a simple get together of writers from all over the country who have been recipients, directly or indirectly, of grants and awards from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). What happened last Feb. 11 to 13 was far from being ...