Improving workers’ wages and curbing the rising cost of basic goods top the list of issues that Filipinos want the Marcos administration to address immediately, according to the latest “Tugon ng Masa” nationwide survey conducted by OCTA Research.
The poll found that 45 percent of adult Filipinos cited improving or increasing wages and salaries of workers as among the most urgent national concerns, followed closely by controlling price increases of basic goods and services at 41 percent.
Access to affordable food, such as rice, vegetables, and meat, ranked third at 30 percent, while fighting graft and corruption in government was cited by 29 percent of respondents.
Providing free, quality education rounded out the top five at 28 percent.
While fighting graft and corruption remained within the top 5, it ranked higher in a Pulse Asia survey conducted also last month which showed that the majority of Filipinos view corruption as having an impact on the economy, in particular on rising prices and weaker services.
The Pulse Asia survey showed at least 38 percent of respondents identified making food prices more affordable as the most urgent action government leaders should take, followed by reducing or eliminating corruption to improve service delivery (31 percent) and creating more jobs and livelihood opportunities (21 percent).
According to OCTA Research, across socioeconomic classes, wage concerns remained prominent. Among Class D respondents, 46 percent prioritized wage increases, compared with 43 percent in Class ABC and 42 percent in Class E.
Concerns over rising prices were most pronounced among Class E respondents at 48 percent, higher than Class ABC at 45 percent and Class D at 40 percent.
Access to affordable food was also a bigger concern among lower-income groups, with 37 percent of Class E respondents citing it, compared with 30 percent in Class D and 25 percent in Class ABC.
The Tugon ng Masa survey was conducted from Dec. 3 to 11, 2025, using face-to-face interviews with 1,200 male and female respondents aged 18 and above nationwide. The survey has a ±3 percent margin of error at a 95 percent confidence level.
For its part, the Department of Social Welfare and Development said its programs that seek to break intergenerational poverty and fight involuntary hunger are right on track as indicated in the latest nationwide survey by OCTA Research and the Social Weather Stations showing a decline in poverty and hunger incidence among Filipinos at 37 percent and 20.1 percent, respectively.
“The improvements we see in these surveys can be attributed to the intensified and sustained social protection programs under President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s administration. As the lead agency in social protection, the DSWD will continue to implement programs so that we can better protect vulnerable Filipinos,” DSWD spokesperson Assistant Secretary Irene Dumlao said.
Dumlao said some of these programs include the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), which caters to poorest of the poor with more than 4 million household beneficiaries, and the Walang Gutom Program (WFP), which currently assists close to 600,000 food-poor families.
To further bolster the DSWD’s efforts in addressing involuntary hunger in 2026, the Department, in collaboration with food supply partners, plans to expand the Walang Gutom Kitchen (WGK) to other parts of the country with high incidence of hunger.
The Walang Gutom Kitchen in Pasay City currently provides an average of 300-350 hot meals twice a day to families and individuals with no access to food, particularly those living on the streets.
