Gov’t rating in fight vs graft down – poll

MANILA, Philippines - The Aquino administration experienced a 12-point decline in its rating on the issue of fighting graft and corruption in the third quarter survey of Pulse Asia amid the pork barrel scam.

Pulse Asia’s Ulat ng Bayan survey, conducted from Sept. 14 to 27, showed that Filipinos’ appreciation for the administration’s anti-corruption initiatives went down from 59 percent in March to 47 percent in September.

The government’s scores also declined on the issues of fighting criminality (from 63 to 60 percent); enforcing the law to all, whether influential or ordinary people (from 58 to 54 percent), and stopping the destruction and abuse of the environment (from 51 to 50 percent).

Its ratings on the following issues also dropped: increasing peace in the country (from 52 to 46 percent); creating more jobs (from 50 to 45 percent); improving/increasing the pay of workers (from 45 to 43 percent); controlling fast population growth (from 44 to 41 percent), and controlling inflation (from 39 to 34 percent).

The government’s rating of the issue of reducing poverty, however, remained at 39 percent.

Pulse Asia’s nationwide survey used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 representative adults aged 18 and above.

It has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.