A MAJORITY of adult Filipinos continue to feel safe in their communities, but confidence in personal and household security has weakened significantly since 2023, according to the latest Tugon ng Masa (TNM) survey by Octa Research.
The July 2026 survey found that 72 percent of Filipinos feel safe in their neighborhoods, while 68 percent said they are not afraid to walk alone at night. However, only 54 percent said they are not worried about robbers breaking into their homes.
Although Filipinos generally maintain a positive perception of peace and order in their immediate communities, concerns become more pronounced when safety is viewed in terms of specific personal and household risks.
The survey, conducted from July 4 to 11 among 1,200 probability respondents aged 18 and above, has a margin of error of ±3 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
The national figures, however, reveal wide varying perceptions across the country.
The Visayas posted the highest level of confidence in neighborhood safety at 84 percent, while the National Capital Region recorded the lowest at 58 percent.
For walking alone at night, agreement was highest in Balance Luzon at 72 percent and Mindanao at 71 percent, but fell to only 48 percent in NCR.
Home security generated the weakest national result. Balance Luzon registered the highest share of respondents who said they were not worried about robbers breaking into their homes at 61 percent, compared with only 44 percent in NCR and 47 percent in Mindanao.
The regional differences become even more glaring when looking at individual regions.
Cordillera Administrative Region and Caraga recorded almost universal confidence in neighborhood safety, at 100 percent and 99 percent, respectively. Ilocos Region followed at 94 percent, while Western Visayas posted 92 percent.
At the other end of the spectrum, only 45 percent of respondents in Davao Region said they felt safe in their neighborhoods, followed by Cagayan Valley at 53 percent, NCR at 58 percent, and Soccsksargen (South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and General Santos City).
Furthermore, Davao Region also posted particularly low confidence on the other two measures. Only 58 percent said they were not afraid to walk alone at night, while just 23 percent said they were not worried about robbers breaking into their homes.
Perhaps the most significant finding is the deterioration in safety perceptions compared with March 2023.
The proportion of Filipinos who said they feel safe in their neighborhood fell 15 percentage points, from 87 percent in 2023 to 72 percent in 2026.
The decline was even larger for home security. The share saying they were not worried about robbers breaking into their homes dropped 17 points, from 71 percent to 54 percent.
Meanwhile, those who said they were not afraid to walk alone at night declined 13 points, from 81 percent to 68 percent.
NCR experienced the sharpest deterioration among the major areas.
The proportion of NCR residents who felt safe in their neighborhood plunged from 91 percent in March 2023 to 58 percent in July 2026, a 33-point decline.
Even more striking was the drop in confidence about walking alone at night, which fell from 88 percent to 48 percent, or 40 percentage points.
The share of NCR residents who were not worried about home break-ins also declined, from 61 percent to 44 percent.
Balance Luzon also recorded substantial declines, including a 23-point drop in confidence about home security and a 19-point decline in the perception of neighborhood safety.
The Visayas stood out as the only major area where perceptions of general safety and nighttime security did not decline from 2023.
The percentage of Visayans who felt safe in their neighborhoods actually increased from 81 percent in 2023 to 84 percent in 2026.
Those who said they were not afraid to walk alone at night also edged up from 70 percent to 71 percent.
Nevertheless, confidence in home security slipped slightly, from 57 percent to 55 percent.
Octa said the comparatively steady figures in the Visayas may point to a possible role for consistent, visible local policing and community-based mechanisms, although it stressed that this is only one possible explanation and that the survey cannot establish the cause of the differences.
The survey also showed that perceptions of safety weakened across socioeconomic groups, with Class ABC recording some of the largest declines.
Among Class ABC households, the share who felt safe in their neighborhood dropped 23 points from 92 percent in 2023 to 69 percent in 2026.
Those who were not afraid to walk alone at night declined 19 points, from 89 percent to 70 percent, while confidence about home security fell 22 points, from 70 percent to 48 percent.
Class D also recorded substantial declines, while Class E registered comparatively smaller changes.
Octa cautioned against interpreting the results as a direct measure of actual crime.
The poll measures public perceptions of safety, not crime incidence itself. The research group noted that comparing the survey findings with official crime statistics could provide a fuller picture of the relationship between perceived and actual safety.
Overall, the July 2026 TNM findings paint a delicate scenario of peace and order in the Philippines. ‘Most Filipinos still feel safe where they live, but that confidence becomes weaker when they think about walking alone at night or protecting their homes from break-ins,’ Octa said.
More importantly, the broad decline from 2023 suggests that the country’s sense of security goes beyond whether people feel safe in their immediate communities.
The widening gap between perceptions of overall community safety and concerns about personal and household security could be an important consideration for policymakers and local authorities as they work to strengthen public confidence in peace and order.