New SWS survey reveals 4.1-M working-age Filipinos stranded due to community quarantines

FILE: STRANDED PASSENGERS. Stranded passengers stay under the flyover near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3, in Pasay City. Many passengers were stranded when domestic flights were canceled by their airlines. (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)

Due to the implementation of community quarantines across the country in a bid to quell rising coronavirus cases, 4.1 million working-age Filipinos got stranded, the latest survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) published on Saturday, June 13, revealed.

These individuals, according to the SWS Mobile Phone Survey, were 5.4 percent of the country’s projected population of 75.8 million working-age Filipinos.

Among those who were stranded because of the quarantines, 6.4 percent of them or 1.1 million were in Mindanao, 5.3 percent or 1.8 million were in Balance Luzon, five percent or 710,000 were in the Visayas, and 4.8 percent or 490,000 were in Metro Manila.

Five percent or two million were stranded in areas where enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) was implemented, while 5.9 percent or 2.1 million were stuck in places under general community quarantine (GCQ).

The SWS noted that the number of men who got stranded was higher, at 6.2 percent or 2.3 million, than the number of stranded women which was at 4.7 percent or 1.8 million.

By age, the most stranded Filipinos were 18 to 24 years old (11.5 percent), followed by those belonging to the 25 to 34-year-old age group (6.9 percent), 35 to 44 years old (4.2 percent), 45 to 54 years old (4.1 percent), 55 years old and above (3.2 percent), and those aged between 15 to 17 years old (2.7 percent).

There were 4,010 working-age Filipinos who participated in the survey conducted last May 4 to 10 using a mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI). Of those survey respondents, 294 were from the National Capital Region (NCR), 1,645 in Balance Luzon, 792 in the Visayas, and 1,279 in Mindanao. The poll has sampling error margins of ±2 percent for national percentages, ±6 percent for Metro Manila, ±2 percent for Balance Luzon, ±3 percent for the Visayas, and ±3 percent for Mindanao.

National Housing Authority (NHA) general manager Marcelino Escalada, Jr. earlier announced that the government is suspending its “Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa” (BP2) program to prioritize the return of stranded individuals in Metro Manila to their respective hometowns. He said they will be assisting first the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), construction workers, tourists, and students who do not have the capacity to finance their stay in Manila.