SWS poll: Filipinos reject authoritarianism, military rule

Once criticized for their "exuberant democracy," a majority of Filipinos still prefer democracy over authoritarianism and military government.

Results of a seven-nation project surveying democratization and value changes in East Asia found that 64 percent of Filipinos preferred democracy and 63 percent rejected authoritarianism.

Called East Asia Barometer, the survey was conducted in the country by private pollster Social Weather Stations (SWS).

The survey showed that 88 percent of Filipinos wanted varying levels of democratization with respondents giving the present government an average score of 6.7 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning complete dictatorship and 10 meaning complete democracy.

But 82 percent of respondents want the country to remain democratic and predicted that Philippine democracy would score 7.7 in the next five years.

Unmindful of the criticism by former Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew that the cause of the country’s economic problems was its "exuberant democracy," a strong majority of respondents rejected authoritarian proposals they experienced under the rule of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Sixty-three percent rejected the proposal that "the military should come in to govern the country" while 69 percent rejected the idea of a one-party system.

Most respondents also disapproved the proposal of having a strong leader decide things (69 percent) or having technocrats decide everything (77 percent).

Marcos, who died in exile in Hawaii in 1988, himself was rejected by 73 percent of respondents who condemned his administration as a dictatorship. Twenty-four percent of respondents called his rule as a "complete dictatorship."

When asked to say in their own words what "democracy" means to them, most respondents used the words "kalayaan" or "freedom" and most respondents rated the present system as better than the system under Marcos.

The survey was part of the East Asia Barometer project, partially supported by the National Taiwan University, and involved similar projects in Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, China, Taiwan and Thailand.

East Asia Barometer country directors met recently and agreed to allow each local partner to release its own findings separately.

The local survey was conducted among 1,200 adult respondents from March 4 to 23, for an error margin of plus or minus three points at the 95 percent confidence level.