By Catherine S Valente/Manila Times

Economic issues continue to be of foremost concern to Filipinos, a recent Pulse Asia survey said.
The poll, conducted from May 30 to June 5, asked 1,200 adults to pick three issues from a list that they think the Aquino government should act on immediately.
They were also told they can add other concerns not on the list. The margin of error was plus/minus 3% at the 95% confidence level.
Results showed that controlling inflation continue to be the top concern of almost half of the respondents (47%).
Increasing workers’ pay was in close second, with 46% saying it should be a government priority.
Four in every 10 Filipinos, meanwhile, were concerned about fighting graft and corruption in government.
Also among the top national concerns were job creation (36%), poverty reduction (35%), peace (21%) criminality (20%), rule of law (16%) and environmental destruction (15%). The respondents were least concerned about population control (9%), national territorial integrity (7%), terrorism (4%) and charter change (4%).
Responding to the survey results, Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr assured that the government will continue to intensify efforts in controlling inflation.“Government is exerting maximum efforts to preserve the purchasing power of the peso. Our inflation rate of 1.2% is at its lowest,” Coloma said in a text message.On one hand, he noted, “‘Headline’ survey question was on overall satisfaction with president’s performance.”
“Even if they are ‘concerned’ with those specific issues, almost two out of every three respondents were still satisfied with the president’s overall performance,” Coloma said.
In various geographic areas, a majority in Mindanao (53%) expressed concern on inflation, while a majority in Metro Manila (53%) expressed concern on low workers’ pay.
In Visayas, the most concern was expressed on job creation (51%), controlling inflation (47%) and increasing the pay of workers (42%).
In the rest of Luzon, the top concerns were increasing the pay of workers (46%) and controlling inflation (45%).
Among social classes, those in Classes ABC and D were most concerned about low workers’ pay (48% and 46% respectively), corruption in government (40% and 46% respectively), and inflation (40% and 46% respectively).
In Class E, the leading urgent national concerns were controlling inflation (52%) and increasing the pay of workers (46%).
Across all geographic areas and socio-economic classes, the least concern was expressed on Charter change (2 to 5% and 1 to 5%, respectively) and terrorism (both 3 to 6%).
On rapid population growth, concern was expressed by 4% in Mindanao, 8% in the Visayas, 5% in Class E and 10% in Class D.
On environmental degradation, only 9% of those in Class E expressed concern.