17M Filipino families victims of violence, common crime — SWS

FILE: Street scene near Plaza Roma along A. Soriano Avenue, Intramuros, Manila during the papal visit of Pope Francis in January 2015. (Photo By Patrickroque01 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey revealed that an estimated of 1.7 million Filipino families were victims of violence and common crimes.

The Fourth Quarter 2017 SWS Survey results released on February 1 showed that the victimization rate rose to a 7.6%, which included common crimes of violence, robbery, break-ins, and carjacking.

There is an increase of 1.5 points compared to the 6.1% or 1.4 million families back in September 2017, and the highest since 11.4% in June 2016.

“However, due to the record-low 3.7% quarterly victimization rate in June 2017, the resulting annual average victimization by any of the common crimes for 2017 was a record-low 6.1%,” the report read.

“This is 2.1 points below the 8.2% annual average in 2016, and 0.7 point below the previous record-low annual average of 6.8% in 2015,” it added.

SWS has been asking respondents since 1989, whether any household member became a victim of the common crimes: house break-in and violence in the past six months. It was only in 1992 when they added motor vehicle theft to the list of crimes.

SWS noted that the poll-making body received much higher reports of common crimes than the number that the police received.

Furthermore, despite the rate increases of families victimized by street robbery  in the last two quarters, the December 2017 survey found that the averages were lower.

“The resulting 2017 average victimization by street robbery was a record-low 4.2%. This is 1.5 points below the 5.7% average in 2016, and 0.6 point below the previous record-low 4.8% annual average in 2015,” it said.

This was also the case for the fear of burglary and presence of drug addicts, which rose the last quarter, but was still a lowered average in 2017.

SWS has regularly included in their survey what respondents fear in relation to crimes since 1985.

It revealed that 59% of Filipino adults agreed with the statement, “In this neighborhood, people are usually afraid that robbers might break into their houses (Sa lugar na ito, ang mga tao ay karaniwang natatakot na baka may mga magnanakaw na makakapasok sa loob ng kanilang tahanan).” These results show a five-point increase from the 54$ in September 2017.

The survey found 48% agreeing with the statement, “In this neighborhood, people are usually afraid to walk in the street at night because it is not safe (Sa lugar na ito, ang mga tao ay karaniwang natatakot maglakad sa kalye sa gabi dahil mapanganib),” which was a point different to September 2017.

“The resulting 57.0% annual average fear of burglary for 2017 is 3.3 points below the 60.3% annual average in 2016,” SWS added.