MANILA – Eight out of every 10 Filipinos fear that they or anyone they know could fall victim to extrajudicial killings, or EJK, a Social Weather Station (SWS) survey showed.
Results of SWS’ Fourth Quarter 2018 survey showed that 78 percent of Pinoys declared they are “worried” (42 percent very worried and 36 percent somewhat worried), and 22 percent are “not worried” (9 percent not too worried and 13 percent not worried at all).
The result also showed that worry about becoming victims of EJK was at its highest in the Visayas at 83 percent, followed by Metro Manila at 79 percent, Mindanao at 78 percent, and Balance Luzon at 75 percent.
Around 50 percent of Filipinos also believe that only the poor are falling victim to EJKs; three percent said only the rich; and, 48 percent said the problem does not choose a class.
The SWS survey was conducted from Dec. 16 to 19, 2018 using face-to-face interviews of 1,440 adults (18 years old and above) nationwide – 360 each in Balance Luzon, Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
It had sampling error margins of ±2.6 percent for national percentages, and ±5 percent each for Balance Luzon, Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao.
The release of SWS survey results came days after President Rodrigo Duterte said in a speech that his administration will intensify its “war on drugs” in his final three years in office.
Based on the records of the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the administration’s drug war campaign already claimed 5,176 lives from July 1, 2016 to Jan. 31, 2019./PN
