Poll: Gov't rates highly on foreign relations, poorly on fighting inflation, corruption

The Second Quarter 2007 Social Weather Survey, fielded over June 27-30, found the National Administration rated highly by the public on the matter of foreign relations, but poorly on the issues of fighting inflation and eradicating graft and corruption.

Of eight topics probed, respondents were mostly satisfied with the National Administration on four topics, neutral on one, and mostly dissatisfied in three.

The June 2007 survey found 50% satisfied and 27% dissatisfied with the performance of the National Administration on the issue of foreign relations, for a positive Net Satisfaction Rating of +22 (% satisfied minus % dissatisfied, correctly rounded).

The National Administration also obtained positive marks on the issues of helping the poor, with net +19 (52% satisfied, 33% dissatisfied), fighting terrorism, with +18 (49% satisfied, 31% dissatisfied), and distributing lands under land reform, with +11 (44% satisfied, 33% dissatisfied).

Net satisfaction with the National Administration on fighting crimes is a neutral net -3 (38% satisfied, 41% dissatisfied).

The National Administration received clearly negative scores on the issues of ensuring that no family will be hungry, with net -17 (30% satisfied, 47% dissatisfied), eradicating graft and corruption, with net -18 (31% satisfied, 49% dissatisfied), and fighting inflation, with net -25 (29% satisfied, 55% dissatisfied).

Although the new scores on the core topics are lower than in the previous survey of February 2007, they are still better than in the first half of 2005, which was a low point in satisfaction with the National Administration.

The National Administration has typically enjoyed positive net satisfaction ratings on foreign relations, going negative to net -7 only during the Flor Contemplacion crisis in 1995. The foreign relations net rating ranged from +19 to +32 since recovering from net +15 in May 2005.

The National Administration's rating on fighting terrorism has also been generally positive, turning neutral only in the first and second quarters of 2005, at net +3 and -2, respectively. It has ranged from +6 to +21 in the past two years.

The public gives more or less neutral ratings to the National Administration's performance on fighting crimes, ranging from -9 to +10 in the past two years, after recovering from a negative -12 score in December 2004. The June 2007 survey's new score of net -3 is a fall from net +10 in February.

The administration's net satisfaction rating on helping the poor has trended roughly upward since recovering from net -7 in May 2005. It ranged from net -4 to +25 in the past two years, although the June 2007 score of net +19 is down by 6 points from February 2007.

Dissatisfaction with the National Administration's performance on ensuring no family will be hungry has dominated since SWS first surveyed it in August 2005, when the net rating was -31, and reached a record low of net -34 in March 2006. The June 2007 rating is net -17, down by 10 points from last February.

Dissatisfaction with the National Administration traditionally prevails on the matter of eradicating graft and corruption. The rating became neutral or slightly positive only during the start of a new administration. However, dissatisfaction eased slightly in the past three quarters, ranging from net -19 to -14, after being in the net -30s in 2006.

The National Administration has always received negative marks for its performance on fighting inflation, ever since first surveyed by SWS in November 1991. It ranged from net -43 to -22 at the beginning of President Arroyo's second term in 2004 up to the end of 2006. The dissatisfaction eased slightly in the past three quarters, ranging from net -25 to -14.

Thus inflation, followed by corruption, are the two biggest sources of public dissatisfaction with the National Administration.

SWS also gets ratings of satisfaction with the National Administration on various other topics, which change from survey to survey. On the matter of distributing lands to deserving tillers under land reform, the Arroyo administration received a moderate +11 in June 2007; several past ratings on land reform have all been positive, except for a net -7 in May 2002.

The Second Quarter of 2007 Social Weather Survey was conducted over June 27-30, 2007 using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults divided into random samples of 300 each in Metro Manila, the Balance of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao (sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages and ±6% for area percentages).

The area estimates were weighted by National Statistics Office medium-population projections for 2007 to obtain the national estimates.