Executive Summary – Findings of PAHAYAG VisMin Poll
INTRODUCTION
PAHAYAG VISMIN is an independent non-commissioned survey with a sample size of 2,000 registered voters across the Visayas and Mindanao regions. 1,000 survey respondents were chosen at random from the Visayas and Mindanao clusters, respectively, from the following regions: Western, Central, and Eastern Visayas, Zamboanga Peninsula, Northern Mindanao, Davao Region SOCCSKSARGEN, Caraga Region, and BARMM.
Respondents were asked questions to gauge their opinions and sentiments on the following key variables: Living Standards; The Country (State of the Nation); Love and Care of Leaders; Political Issues; Political Parties; Sources of News on Political and Current Events; Media Habits; Endearing Brands; Life in Visayas and Mindanao; and Predisposition for 2022 Elections.
Fieldwork was conducted from November 15-19, 2019. The margin of error across the entire survey population is +/- 2.19%. The margin of error within the Visayas and Mindanao clusters, separately, is +/- 3.10%.
LIVING STANDARDS
In General
Nine out of every ten PAHAYAG VisMin respondents reported they were satisfied with their personal lives, with 55.80% indicating they are HAPPY and 33.55% VERY HAPPY with their lives. Meanwhile, only 10.65% of respondents said they are SAD (9.40%) or VERY SAD (1.25%) with their lives. Respondents recorded the highest percentage of VERY HAPPY ratings in Caraga Region (43.2%), Eastern Visayas (41.42%), and President Rodrigo Duterte’s hometown, Davao Region (40.65%).
Present Financial Situation and Expectations for Future
Six out of every ten respondents reported they are neither POOR nor WELL-OFF. The highest proportion of respondents reporting themselves as WELL-OFF came from the regions of Eastern Visayas (29.71%), Davao (25.70%), and Caraga (24%). The largest percentage of respondents rating themselves POOR or VERY POOR come from Northern Mindanao (42.5%) and Caraga (33.6%).
It is of note that the proportion of respondents that indicated they were POOR or VERY POOR (~20%) in several regions (Western Visayas, Central Visayas, Northern Mindanao) are remarkably higher than the official 2018 poverty statistics of the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Majority of the respondents rated their family lives as FAIR with the remainder more or less evenly split between GOOD and POOR. Notable deviations from this overall pattern are observed in Northern Mindanao and Caraga, wherein larger proportions indicated that their family lives are POOR (~40%).
Meanwhile, seven out of ten respondents indicated that they struggled to buy food at least once during the reference period despite 61.60% of families rating themselves as neither poor nor well-off. It is of note that the incidence of struggling to buy food is especially low in high-poverty BARMM, where almost half (49.26%) of respondents indicated that they did not struggle to buy food.
The majority of VisMin respondents were neutral in their assessment of their future financial situations, with 58.85% of respondents indicating that they expected NO CHANGE in their financial situations. However, more than three out of ten respondents (36.35%) expected that their financial situations would improve in the future, with optimism particularly high in Eastern Visayas, SOCCSKSARGEN, and BARMM. Only a small fraction of respondents (4.80%) expect their financial situations to worsen.
Delivery of Basic Services
Majority of the respondents are HAPPY with the delivery of all basic services. In particular, they are happiest with education (75.20%), health (74.45%), and electricity (72.75%). Significantly, dissatisfaction with health and education services was low across all regions, the highest dissatisfaction rate being the 5.15% recorded in BARMM for both services.
The services with the highest levels of dissatisfaction across the board are communications (8.3%), transportation (7.3%) and housing (7.2%). Respondents were particularly dissatisfied with housing in Zamboanga Peninsula (15.82%), Caraga (12.8%), and BARMM (11.76%). Double-digit dissatisfaction with transportation and communications services were also recorded in Zamboanga Peninsula and BARMM. Respondents from Zamboanga Peninsula and BARMM also recorded higher levels of dissatisfaction with electricity and water supply services.
It should be noted that water supply, which notched the fourth-highest incidence of dissatisfaction across VisMin at 7.10%, also notched high levels of dissatisfaction in BARMM (13.97%), Zamboanga Peninsula (13.92%), Caraga (10.4%), and Central Visayas (9.66%).