Filipinos among ‘most ignorant’ on key issues – survey

MANILA, Philippines — Despite high confidence in their answers, Filipinos turned out to be among the most ignorant on key global and local issues, based on a perception survey conducted by a Paris-based global market research and consulting firm.

In the 2017 Perils of Perception Survey by Ipsos MORI, the Philippines ranked third in terms of ignorance on key issues, next to South Africa and Brazil.

The survey showed that Filipino respondents – despite being among the most ignorant of the issues – are among the most confident of their answers, along with those from Peru and India.

Conducted in September-October last year, the survey had 29,133 respondents from 38 countries, including 500 from the Philippines.

“Across all 38 countries in the 2017 study, each population gets a lot wrong. We are often most incorrect on factors that are widely discussed in the media, such as the murder rate and the number of people who die from terrorist attacks each year,” Ipsos public affairs managing director Bobby Duffy said.

“But in this new study we also show that we’re often unduly pessimistic about how healthy people are, as well as overestimating how connected they are to technology,” he added.

The survey asked respondents on various issues such as crime rates, teenage births, health issues and access to technology.

In most cases, Filipino respondents overestimated their perception compared to the actual data.