PAHAYAG 2023 FIRST QUARTER SURVEY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

OVERVIEW

PAHAYAG 2023 FIRST QUARTER (PQ1) is an independent and non-commissioned survey conducted by PUBLiCUS Asia Inc. The survey period was from 2-6 March 2023 using purposive sampling comprised of 1,500 respondents randomly drawn from the market research panel of over 200,000 Filipinos maintained by the Singapore office of PureSpectrum, a US-based panel marketplace with multinational presence. The sample was restricted to registered Filipino voters.
To have a good reading on the ground, the 1,500 respondents were divided geographically into five (5) island regions: National Capital Region (NCR), North Central Luzon (NCL), South Luzon (SL), Visayas and Mindanao (Table 1).

Table 1

DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF RESPONDENTS

The respondents were predominantly from the ages of 18-49 years old, Roman Catholic and has secured college education (Table 2). A 50-50 split is observed in terms of gender, civil status and with OFW family. Almost everyone owns and uses a mobile phone and has internet access at home. More than 50% belong to a household earning Php20,000 to Php70,000 a month. The average household size is five, 3-4 are registered voters and most have voted in the past 3 elections. 48% are leaning towards the current administration and 46% are undecided in terms of the opposition to the administration (Table 3).

Table 2

Table 3

Interestingly, there is a directional drop in pro-administration as neutral sentiments grew significantly at 90% confidence level as shown in Table 4.

Table 4

STATE OF COUNTRY, NATIONAL AND HOUSEHOLD OUTLOOK

There is stable perception on current state and direction of the country (Table 5), including the national economic and household financial prospects moving to the 2nd Quarter. There is a steady gradual decline in positive outlook of our country’s current direction and household financial prospects as uncertainty slightly grows.

Table 5

The strong perception of current state is pulled up by 25-29s, Private and Gov’t workers while the 18-24s, Low Income and Non-working pull it down (<50%). Positive outlook of where the country is heading and future prospects are still shared by the bigger majority of Filipinos across segments (Table 6).

Table 6

NATIONAL ISSUES

Some 32 national issues were tested in PQ1. There were issues tracked and some new issues included. The most approved national issues were the establishment of living wage, continuation of the libreng sakay in EDSA, the imposition of SRP on basic commodities and wealth tax (Table 7).

Table 7

About 7 in 10 approve the establishment of a VFA with Japan, while about the same number clamor to suspend the collection of higher Philhealth premiums in 2023 (Table 8).

Table 8

The rest of the issues are as follows Table 9, 10, 11 and 12:

Table 9

Table 10

Table 11

Table 12

MACRO AND MICRO ISSUES

The top issues remained the same for PBBM to focus on the economy, prices/inflation, corruption, poverty and jobs (Table 13).

Table 13

Specific to household concerns, not being able to afford one’s basic needs, losing a job or having difficulty finding one are the topmost anxieties experienced looking towards the next quarter (Table 14).

Table 14

SCORECARD FOR NATIONAL LEADERS AND INSTITUTIONS

There were no significant drops in approval rating from Quarter 4 last year but there is a notable increase in impartiality for the Senate President, House Speaker and the Chief Justice (Table 15).

There is a significant drop is in PBBM’s approval rating viz Q4’22 among 30-39s, Low Income, and Catholics. VP Sara, on the other hand, gains among 50-59s while the rest is stable (Table 16).

Table 15

Table 16

TESDA remains the topmost approved government agency followed by AFP, DOT, BSP, and DOST rounding up the top 5. Close 6th to 8th is DepEd, DSWD, and CHED, respectively (Table 17).

Table 17

TRUST RATINGS

Trust ratings for the country’s top officials are stable vs. last quarter, with VP Sara getting the highest score. SPJMZ, HSFR, and CJAG able to arrest sig drop from Q4’22 (Table 18).

Table 18

TESDA (60) and AFP (59) are tied at top spot for most trusted government agency (Table 19). Ratings for all agencies are sustained from last quarter (i.e., no sig movements).

Table 19

EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT OF INCUMBENT LEADERS

A common trait for the top officials are love for country, concern for fellow countrymen, and responsible/ fulfills one’s sworn duties. Sig skews in NCL for PBBM and MIN for VP Sara while negative skews in SL for both are most telling of the biases/political leanings in each area (Table 20).

Table 20

PERFORMANCE OF NEWLY-ELECTED OFFICIALS

Sen. Raffy Tulfo (74) bests VP Sara (68) and PBBM (63) in performance rating, while all other recently elected personalities fall below 60. Gainers this quarter are Francis Escudero, Loren Legarda and Jinggoy Estrada (Table 21).

Table 21

ASSESSMENT OF CABINET MEMBERS’ PERFORMANCE

6 in 10 Filipinos approve of PBBM’s cabinet, with second-in-command VP Sara deemed as the top and best cabinet member of Marcos Jr.’s Administration, skewed highest in MIN, again lowest in SL (Table 22).

Table 22

MEDIA CONSUMPTION HABITS

Internet platforms (social media and streaming) continue to be the media used by most as well as the daily news source of 5 in 10 Filipinos, likely due to its mobile format.  Approximately 8 in 10 access TV and Print but more than half of users get their daily news elsewhere. The least used is Radio, i.e., 6 in 10, of which about 2 use it as a daily news source, skewed in MIN (Table 23).

Table 23

Facebook and YouTube are still the topmost used media platforms in the PH, while Netflix, Instagram, and Tiktok all tie in third (Table 24)

Table 24

However, trust in the platform (Table 25) is higher for YouTube (53) than Facebook (43), the latter closely tying with Netflix (42). On the other hand, frequent users of IG, Radio, Twitter, Spotify, and Reddit tend to also have high trust in the platform.

Table 25

TRUST RATINGS OF NEWS OUTLETS

GMA7 is the leading trusted news outlet, second by CNN Philippines. ABS-CBN (Online) ties with newspaper PDI, Manila Bulletin, and Philippine Star, while the rest trails at 33% and below (Table 26).

Table 26

All news outlets sustain their trust ratings from last quarter except for significant recovery of Business Mirror and Politiko Online (Table 27).

Table 27