Maybe those who answered are among the upper portion of the Philippine society. In an article entitled "Unequal Incomes" (Inquirer.net, 4 November 2007), former NEDA Chief Cielito Habito discussed an interesting data:

 xxx According to the FIES [2006 Family Income and Expenditures Survey] data, average family income in nominal terms (that is, expressed in the prevailing prices for those years) rose from P148,000 in 2003 to P172,000 in 2006, or a 16.2-percent rise. But prices rose by 19.6 percent in the same period, which means that the rising income still failed to catch up with the increase in prices. Thus, average family income in 2006, if measured in 2003 prices, would have been only P144,000, or lower by P4,000.

The average family incomes cited above are derived simply by dividing total family income by the total number of families (17.4 million in 2006). Thus it implicitly assumes that every family gets an equal slice of the GDP [Gross Domestic Product] bibingka. But everyone knows that some get bigger slices than others, and that incomes in the Philippines are far from equal. Just how unequal are they?

Now that there is, again, an increasing discussion on how difficult life has become in the Philippines for ordinary citizens, perhaps it's only proper to reopen the poll. Ramdam mo ba talaga ang asenso? You could vote through the poll module found at the left-bottom side of the blog.

Update (22 May 2008): We're closing this poll, with the opening of a new one. The following are the figures for the poll "Ramdam mo ba ang Asenso?" --  72% (67 votes) said "Hindi,"  26.9% (25 votes) said "Oo Naman," while 1.1% (1 vote) said "Ewan." As usual, you could still give your opinion through the comment section.