Perception and reality

Social survey research is a means of learning about the state of society from the Filipino people themselves. We researchers address certain questions, through field interviewers, to a representative sample of the people, and then we study the answers of the people.

The qualifications of the respondents on the question-topics matter very much, of course. Do they know about them from up close or from afar? How important are the topics? To me, popular misperceptions as to which nationality consumes the most alcohol, or has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy, as published recently by a market research company, are mere conversation fodder.

Actual victimization and actual fear of crime. For close to three decades, the quarterly Social Weather Surveys have been asking respondents if anyone in their families was victimized by a common crime in the past six months. (See “Fourth Quarter 2017 Social Weather Survey: Victimization by any of the common crimes rises to 7.6%; but annual average for 2017 a record low 6.1%,” www.sws.org.ph; final posting 2/15/18.)

In 2017, an average of 4.2 percent of families were victims of snatching or pickpocketing outdoors, 2.2 percent of homes were burglarized, 0.7 percent of motor-vehicle-owning families got their cars stolen, and 0.7 percent of families suffered physical violence. These rates are larger than the crime rates from police blotters, since many victims do not bother to report them, mainly out of a sense of futility.

Those fearing for their safety were many times more than those victimized. In 2017, an average of 57 percent, nationwide said that people in their neighborhood were usually afraid that robbers might break into their houses; 48 percent said that they were usually afraid to walk in the neighborhood streets at night; and 42 percent said that there were very many drug addicts around.

The average fear of burglary in 2017 was highest in the National Capital Region (66 percent), followed by the Balance of Luzon (60 percent), the Visayas (51 percent), and Mindanao (50 percent). Fear
of walking in the streets at night in 2017 was likewise most in NCR (56 percent), followed by Balance Luzon (51 percent), the Visayas (50 percent), and Mindanao (44 percent). Addicts in the neighborhood were most seen in NCR (58 percent), followed by Balance Luzon (46 percent), the Visayas (42 percent) and Mindanao (37 percent).

Self-reported economic distress is real. With respect to economic distress in their own families, SWS considers heads of households as reliable judges (see “Poverty rose slightly in 2017,” and “Hunger fell slightly in 2017,” Opinion, 1/20/18 and 1/27/18). It is cruel to label self-rated poverty and hunger as mere perceptions.

Self-rated poverty is strongly correlated with externally judged poverty of the dwelling. In December 2017, it was 61 percent in Class E dwellings (which are “temporary structures, barong-barong type, poorly constructed, one-room affairs, with no garden; unpainted or dilapidated,” in the guidelines used by survey interviewers) versus 42 percent in Class D, and 15 percent in Class ABC.

SWS estimates the total number of self-rated poor families in December 2017 at 10.0 million, consisting of 1.8 million Class Es, 8.1 million Class Ds, and 100,000 Class ABCs. The seemingly misclassified 100,000 Class ABCs are paltry compared to Class E’s 340,000 Not Poor and 815,000 Borderline families that are omitted from the SWS poverty count, out of trust in the respondents’ opinions.

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