Political involvement among the youth in barangays with low number of qualified voters during the 2007 Sangguniang Kabataan election: Issues and concerns

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to described the extent of political involvement of the youth during the 2007 Sangguniang Kabataan (S.K.) election and determine the factors that deter or promote political involvement and formulate possible course of actions that would address current related issues and concerns. Nearly half of the respondents (48.8 %) were 16 years of age, 32.6 % of whom were 17 years old, while the rest were 15 years old. Almost two-thirds of the respondents reached the high school level of education, while one-fourth of them are in college level. This implies that a substantial portion of the respondents have low educational attainment. Nearly half of the respondents’ parents were earning a gross monthly income of P5, 000 and below, while less than one-fourth were earning P20, 001 and above. This implies that the biggest portion of the respondents came from families whose monthly gross income is below the minimum regional wage. The mean monthly gross income was P5, 762.78. Less than one-half of the respondents’ fathers have earned college degrees, while nearly one-fourth were college level and the rest were either elementary or post graduate level. The trend indicates that most of the respondents’ fathers have college education. On the other hand, nearly one-half of their mothers earned college degrees, while slightly over one-fourth of their mothers were high school graduates, while the rest of their mothers were either elementary, high school, or college level. The majority of the respondents have no family members who are actively supporting politicians or occupying elective positions in Iloilo City in the last six years, while 14.0 % of them have at least one family member who is actively supporting politicians in the last six years in Iloilo City. The rest of the respondents have two, three, or four family members who are active in politics. Majority of the respondents have manifested “high involvement” during the 2007 SK election. However, more than one-fourth of them also manifested ‘very poor involvement”. This implies that a substantial percentage of their level of involvement was characterized by active involvement or no involvement at all. All participants decided to run as SK chairwomen because of family pressure and encouragement by barangay officials. All of them have family members who are barangay or SK officials. Furthermore, they were also assured of victory, either by their parents or barangay officials.