Our insecure homes and streets

One aspect of the quality of life in the Philippines that, sad to say, has NOT improved over the past four decades is the insecurity of homes and neighborhood streets.

Home insecurity. As surveyed nationwide in June 2026, the proportion of Filipinos saying that people in their neighborhood were fearful of being burglarized was 62 percent. On the other hand, in June 1985, this proportion was only 54 percent, from the same survey question.

By area, the highest home-insecurity in June 2026 was in the National Capital Region (NCR) at 75 percent, followed by Balance Luzon (BL) at 67 percent, Mindanao (M) at 54 percent, and Visayas (V) at 51 percent. Whereas, in June 1985, the corresponding home-insecurity percentages by area, had been NCR 64, BL 49, M 56, and V 58.

Street insecurity. In June 2026, 59 percent nationwide said that their neighborhood streets were not safe to walk at night; whereas, this proportion was only 48 percent in June 1985. By area, the highest street-insecurity in June 2026 was in NCR at 72 percent, followed by Balance Luzon at 60 percent, Visayas at 57 percent, and Mindanao at 53 percent. Whereas, in June 1985, the corresponding street-insecurity rates had been NCR 57, BL 41, V 49, and M 52.

It is very interesting to see that NCR and BL, despite being the richer areas, are the areas with relatively more insecurity among the residents. Is it because those who can afford it have taken the initiative to provide their own security, via gated villages and the like? Perhaps we’ll do some crosstabulations by Self-Rated Poverty.

Neighborhood insecurity has a long survey history. The data cited here are in “Social Weather Report: Families victimized by common crimes fall from 12.3% in March 2026 to 10.0% in June 2026,” www.sws.org.ph, 9/14/26. This report has 29 pages of which six are text and 23 are supporting tables and charts, going back to the beginning.

The 1985 figures are from a survey I directed for the Bishops-Businessmen’s Committee for Human Development, with comparable methodology. The surveys authored by Social Weather Stations (SWS) itself started in 1986—roughly semiannual in 1986-1991, and quarterly from 1992 to the present, uninterrupted except for 2020 due to pandemic restrictions on field operations. These SWS surveys were non-sponsored and done as a public service, with original raw data archived for further research.

In between the starting and ending points cited above, there has been much fluctuation, but the entire four-decade series of data is generally flat. The home-insecurity rate has never gone below 40 percent; the street-insecurity rate never been below 30.

Victimization by crime is a separate survey topic. The SWS surveys also ask if the family in fact suffered any losses on account of break-in, robbery anywhere outside the home, and suffered from physical violence. These are the common crimes referred to in the title of the new SWS media release.

Every release includes tables and charts that update the proportion of families that reported being victims of a common crime in the past six months. This proportion does have a general long-term downward trend, all through the various national administrations, from Corazon Aquino up to Rodrigo Duterte, except that data are missing in 2020.

The annual average victimization rate was as high as 35.2 percent (in 1991) and as low as 3.5 percent (in 2021). The latest common-crime victimization rate of 10.0 percent in June 2026 appears to be a setback for the administration from the annual averages of 5.8 percent in 2023, 5.5 percent in 2024, and 8.5 percent in 2025. Can it recover?

The victimization rates as reported to survey takers are multiples of the crime rates as reported to the police, since very many crimes go unreported. Some years ago, when the Department of Interior and Local Government and Philippine National Police were our clients, we ran extra items that found that many victims do not bother to report crimes to the authorities, for various reasons, such as: “nothing will happen anyway” (the most popular excuse); it’s too much trouble, relative to the money value lost by the victim; the suspected criminal is someone known to the victim, who feels sorry for the criminal to be punished; etc. Such survey items are also available for further study, due to a formal provision that commissioned survey items can be shared after a maximum embargo of three years.

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mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.

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