Marcos-Duterte feud takes back seat as Filipino voters prioritise jobs, food security

About 94 per cent of respondents in a survey say they will vote for candidates who advocate increased job opportunities and food security

Reading Time:4 minutes

Voters enter a polling centre in 2022 in Quezon City to vote for a new president of the Philippines. Photo: AP

Published: 3:08pm, 19 Feb 2025

The Philippines is nearing a highly charged midterm election with the impeachment saga of Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio dominating headlines, yet bread-and-butter concerns still hold sway over voters.

A whopping 94 per cent of respondents in a Social Weather Stations survey, commissioned by the think tank Stratbase Group in January, said they would vote for candidates who advocated increased job opportunities and food security.

Another poll released this month showed 59 per cent of Filipinos were most concerned with higher rice prices, with 58 per cent of the respondents believing that solutions by President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s administration had been “insufficient”.

Athena Charanne Presto, a sociologist from the University of the Philippines, said the figures indicated that the impeachment row was not a primary concern for most voters.

“These bread-and-butter issues can overshadow political dramas in people’s everyday lives,” Presto told This Week in Asia.

She added that while Duterte-Carpio’s case might sway some opinions among “deeply political [voters],” it might not be as influential for the average citizen “dealing with daily survival challenges”.