SWS: Noy gov't rating improves from 'good' to 'very good'

MANILA, Philippines - The Aquino administration has improved its satisfaction rating from “good” in June to “very good” in September, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) said in its latest survey.

The SWS poll, taken from Sept. 4 to 7, found 68 percent of respondents satisfied and 12 percent dissatisfied with the general performance of the administration, yielding a “very good” net satisfaction rating of +56.

The remaining 19 percent of respondents were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.

Results of the SWS Third Quarter of 2011 Survey were published in the newspaper BusinessWorld yesterday.

SWS said the government’s latest rating is better than the “good” +45 and +46 scores it garnered in the surveys last June and March, respectively, but less than the “very good” +64 obtained in September and November last year.

The current administration’s net satisfaction rating remains better than those of previous administrations since SWS began the survey in February 1989 under the administration of the late former President Corazon Aquino, mother of the incumbent.

Its net satisfaction dropped among Metro Manila respondents, from +48 to +44, during the survey period while improving in all other areas.

The administration’s net score stayed “very good” in Mindanao (+63 from +57), “good” in Metro Manila (down to +44 from +48), and rose to “very good” from “good” in the Visayas (+51 from +47) and in balance Luzon (+59 from +37).

Net satisfaction also rose to “very good” from “good” for economic classes ABC (+62 from +45), D (+57 from +48) and E (+52 from +36) in these periods.

The survey also found more Filipinos satisfied with the Aquino government’s response to eradicating graft and corruption at +27, and fighting crime (+25).

The government also obtained high satisfaction ratings in improving the quality of children’s education (+56), helping the poor (+50), foreign relations (+44), promoting the welfare of overseas Filipino workers (+41), telling the truth (+37) and reconciliation with Muslim rebels (+34).

A ranking official of the Catholic Church, however, expressed doubts over the results of the latest SWS poll.

“I don’t know who are being asked in the survey... If they will listen to the poor they are more dissatisfied (with the performance of the administration),” Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo told reporters yesterday.

Pabillo, chairman of the National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), urged President Aquino to show strong political will in the implementation of the Agrarian Reform Law.

“We remain concerned that the CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) is not a priority of the present administration,” he said. 

The government also scored only a poor -13 rating in the survey in resolving the Maguindanao massacre.

Compared to the June survey, net satisfaction rating improved in classification across most issues, except in foreign relations, where it remained “good,” though up by a point; eradicating graft and corruption (up 11 points) and fighting crime (up 3 points), where scores were still classified as “moderate”; fighting inflation (up 5 points) and ensuring that oil firms don’t take advantage of oil prices (up 4 points) where ratings remained “neutral”; and resolving the Maguindanao massacre case with justice where the score remained “poor,” despite a three-point improvement.

SWS classifies net satisfaction ratings as: +70 and above, “excellent”; +50 to +69, “very good”; +30 to +49, “good”; +10 to +29, “moderate”; +9 to -9, “neutral”; -10 to -29, “poor”; -30 to -49, “bad”; -50 to -69, “very bad”; -70 and below, “execrable.”

The survey used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 representative adults. It has sampling error margins of plus or minus three percentage points for national percentages and plus or minus six percentage points for area percentages.