Fighting graft surges among Pinoys’ top concerns – OCTA

MANILA, Philippines — Although controlling inflation remains the most urgent national concern of Filipinos, fighting graft and corruption has surged as among the key issues that they want the government to address, a recent survey conducted by the OCTA Research group showed.

The survey, conducted from Sept. 25 to 30, found that 31 percent of the respondents selected fighting graft and corruption as among their top three most urgent concerns.

It went up by 18 points from 13 percent in a similar survey conducted by OCTA in July and reflects a similar trend seen in a recent Pulse Asia survey.

“This marks the highest level of concern recorded and the first time that corruption as an issue has entered the top five national concerns in OCTA’s Tugon ng Masa surveys,” the research group said.

“The sudden surge in concern over corruption has overtaken improving or increasing wages, which had consistently ranked among the top three urgent national issues since March 2024. This reflects a notable shift in public priorities – from primarily economic anxieties to governance and accountability concerns,” it added.

Like in previous polls, controlling the increase in the prices of basic goods remained the top priority, although it continued its downtrend from 50 percent in July to 48 percent in September.

This was the first time that inflation was not selected by a majority of the respondents under the present administration.

The last time was in February 2022, when it was at 41 percent. It went up to as high as 73 percent in December 2023.

Tied with fighting graft as a top priority is ensuring access to affordable food, which was selected also by 31 percent, similar to the previous poll.

The respondents were asked to select up to three issues that they think the government must immediately address.

Other issues included improving salaries of workers (27 percent), reducing poverty (23 percent), creating more jobs (19 percent), providing free quality education (18 percent), fighting drugs (16 percent), lowering the prices of rice (15 percent), addressing hunger (10 percent) and fighting criminality (10 percent).

Issues selected by less than 10 percent of the respondents included promoting peace, providing assistance to farmers, equal enforcement of the law, providing support to small entrepreneurs, defending the country’s ownership in the West Philippine Sea, reducing taxes, stopping the destruction of the environment, defending Philippine territory, controlling population growth, providing assistance and changing the Constitution.

OCTA’s third quarter survey had 1,200 respondents and a margin of error of plus/minus three percent.