7 out of 10 Filipinos ‘closely follow’ Pacquiao-Mayweather fight—SWS

Filipinos cannot get enough of the upcoming fight between Filipino boxing champ Manny Pacquiao and American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., with nearly seven out of 10 Filipinos closely following developments regarding the highly-anticipated megafight

In the results of the Social Weather Stations survey which were released on Thursday, 69 percent of Filipinos say that they closely follow stories relating to the “fight of the century.”

SWS said that the public attention to news of Pacquiao’s fight with Mayweather is notable because “public attention to news of Pacquiao’s fights has typically been higher after the match.”

However, the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight is not the most followed issue by Filipinos during the first quarter of the year.

The SWS survey said that the most followed news event by Filipinos was the state and apostolic visit of Pope Francis in the country last January 15-19, 2015, followed closely by 79 percent of Filipinos. The second most followed news event is the botched operation in Mamasapano, Maguindanao last January 25, 2015, which was followed closely by 70 percent of Filipinos.

Other news events which ranked in the survey include: the investigation of the Senate and House of Representatives on the deaths of 44 members of the Special Action Force (SAF) in Mamasapano (followed by 67 percent of Filipinos); the court trial concerning the pork barrel scam of Janet Lim Napoles (61 percent); the resignation calls for  President Benigno Aquino III as President of the Philippines; the court trial concerning the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre (53 percent); Philippines and China territorial dispute (51%), and the Senate probe on corruption allegations against Vice President Jejomar Binay (51%).

Filipinos also monitored these events during the first three months of 2015: murder case of transgender Jeffrey “Jennifer” Laude (47%); the legislation of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (46%); ISIS beheadings (36%), and the shooting incident in the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (20%).

The survey was conducted from March 20 to 23 with 1,200 respondents. It has sampling error margins for national percentages, and 6% each for Metro Manila, Balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. IDL

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