SWS: NOY'S RATING CONTINUES TO DIP / PULSE ASIA: STILL ENJOYS HI APPROVAL
MANILA, JUNE 23, 2011 (STAR) By Helen Flores - President Aquino's public approval rating continues to drop as he prepares to mark his first year in office.
A recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed the President's net rating slipping from a record high of 64 in November last year to 46 this month, with 64 percent of Filipinos saying they were satisfied with his performance and 18 percent dissatisfied.
The results of the survey, conducted from June 3 to 6 among 1,200 respondents, were published in the newspaper BusinessWorld.
Aquino's satisfaction rating was on the wane from March's "very good" of +51 (69 percent satisfied, 18 percent dissatisfied). His March rating was also a decline from his +64 net rating in November 2010, which was also considered "very good."
But SWS said Aquino's new scores, despite the drop, were all in the "good" and "very good" ranges across all areas, social classes and sex.
In Metro Manila, the President obtained a "good" score of +43 (62 percent satisfied, 19 percent dissatisfied), which is slightly higher than March's "good" +41 (62 percent satisfied, 21 percent dissatisfied).
The rest of Luzon also gave Aquino a "good" +41 (60 percent satisfied, 19 percent dissatisfied), down from the similarly "good" +48 (68 percent satisfied, 20 percent dissatisfied) three months earlier.
Aquino maintained his "very good" score in the Visayas at +51 (67 percent satisfied, 17 percent dissatisfied, correctly rounded), although the score was lower than the previous +60 (75 percent satisfied, 15 percent dissatisfied).
He also kept his "very good" rating in Mindanao at +54 (71 percent satisfied, 17 percent dissatisfied), barely changing from +53 (69 percent satisfied, 16 percent dissatisfied) in March.
SWS said the President's rural net satisfaction fell by eight points, a "good" +47 (65 percent satisfied, 18 percent dissatisfied) from March's "very good" +55 (71 percent satisfied, 16 percent dissatisfied).
Urban net satisfaction, meanwhile, stayed at "good" +45 (63 percent satisfied, 18 percent dissatisfied) but also dropped by two points from +47 (66 percent satisfied, 20 percent dissatisfied, correctly rounded).
The President's net rating among the class ABC rose by nine points to a "very good" +58 (74 percent satisfied, 16 percent dissatisfied) from the "good" +49 (67 percent satisfied, 19 percent dissatisfied) in the previous quarter.
But he got a lower score among the class D or "masa" from a "very good" +51 (69 percent satisfied, 18 percent dissatisfied) in March to a "good" +44 (63 percent satisfied, 19 percent dissatisfied) in June.
Satisfaction with Aquino fell by two points among class E to a "good" +48 (66 percent satisfied, 18 percent dissatisfied) from the "very good" +50 (67 percent satisfied, 17 percent dissatisfied) previously.
Aquino's net rating stayed "good" among men at +49 (67 percent satisfied, 17 percent dissatisfied, correctly rounded), up from +47 (67 percent satisfied, 20 percent dissatisfied) previously.
Among women, the President obtained a "good" score of +43 (62 percent satisfied, 19 percent dissatisfied), 12 points down from the previous "very good" score of +55 (70 percent satisfied, 16 percent dissatisfied).
The SWS classifies net scores of +70 and above as "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"; and -70 and below, "execrable."
Sampling error margins of plus or minus three percentage points for national and plus or minus six percentage points for area percentages were applied in the survey.
Noy unfazed by dip in popularity ratings
The President meanwhile said he remains focused on his objective of improving the lives of Filipinos that survey results were hardly a distraction.
"I am not really that concerned with the popularity (ratings), (whether) it will go up or down," he told Palace reporters in a chance interview at Rizal Hall in Malacañang.
"What is more important to us, at the end of the day, is that we can face anybody and look at them straight in the eye, telling them that we did our job, not for the purpose of getting media mileage but because it is our mandate to do so," Aquino said.
Aquino cited the need to check on the situation in Cotabato, which had been flooded since last week.
"This has been our concern from last week, we have been handling that. The DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) has been on top of the situation, they managed to move really heavy equipment that is clearing the waterways that was clogging several bridges," he said.
"I intend to go to Cotabato and address the concerns of our people there, address it personally because this has been addressed by so many departments since last week," he said.
'Wake-up call'
Opposition lawmakers, saying the recent SWS survey is a wake-up call for the President, urged him to take steps to improve his rating.
"Half of the population doesn't like him anymore that's why you'll have to improve your performance. This is a wake-up call already," House Senior Deputy Minority Leader and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez said.
Ang Galing Pinoy party-list Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo said Aquino should realize that he is no longer on the campaign trail and should start addressing the problems of the country instead of attacking and blaming the past administration for his woes.
He said Aquino should be made aware that the drop in his satisfaction ratings "is due to his inactions and of his coddling of his KKK (classmates, allies and shooting buddies)."
"There's less food on the table. And yet the only thing people can relate P-Noy to is his dates with different girls and his fancy for luxury sports cars," he said.
Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo said Aquino should "buckle down to work and focus on the deteriorating economy."
"The people cannot just be contented on lip service. Job generation and lowering of prices is in order. Good intention is not enough. No alibis. No excuses. People expect swift and visible alleviation from their economic plight," Castelo said.
'Satisfaction rating remains high'
Valenzuela Rep. Rex Gatchalian of the Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC), however, sought to put the latest survey in context, saying the ratings remain "quite high."
"There is reason to believe that majority of Filipinos are rallying behind his reform agenda. The NPC believes that every citizen should consolidate behind the reform agenda of the President, after all governance and moving this country forward is not just the job of the President but rather it's every citizen's responsibility," he said.
"Remember that past administrations received negative ratings. P-Noy's satisfaction mark is far from negative. His good governance program enjoys wide support from the public," Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said.
"Some economic factors, like the rising cost of petroleum productions over which the government has no control, may have affected his rating," he added.
Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr., justice committee chairman, said the five-point fall in the President's satisfaction level "is insignificant considering the problems that his administration is currently facing."
"But taking into account all factors, with a 46-percent approval rating, the President still enjoys the confidence and support of the people," he said.
For her part, Pangasinan Rep. Kimi Cojuangco, a member of the NPC, expressed confidence that the chief executive's ratings would bounce back "when all his new infra and social development projects commence."
"People will see a big improvement. I think he really needed a year to reorganize all the different agencies which were plagued by traditional style of management," she said.
Another administration ally, Rep. Antonio Alvarez of Palawan, said the administration should get to the bottom of why the President's ratings are falling. He said a high approval level is necessary for the President to undertake major reforms in the second year of his presidency.
"He must have a huge political capital to sell them. It will be a lot easier for a president to initiate right but unpopular measures if he has political capital to spend. If goodwill is depleted, it will be a hard sell on his part," he said. With Delon Porcalla, Paolo Romero, Jess Diaz
7 in 10 Pinoys trust P-Noy -- Pulse Asia By Angelo L. Gutierrez (The Philippine Star) Updated June 22, 2011 11:15 AM
MANILA, Philippines - President Benigno Aquino III's approval and trust ratings are going down, but he still enjoys high approval and trusting ratings, a Pulse Asia survey released today showed.
Pulse Asia said that based on its face-to-face interviews with 1,200 people from May 21 to June 4 this year, 71 percent or seven in 10 Filipinos trust and approve of the performance of President Aquino.
The survey also showed that less than one in 10 Filipinos or 8 percent is critical of the President's performance and 7 percent distrusts President Aquino.
The May to June survey results showed that President Aquino's trust rating dipped 9 percent compared to the October 2010 survey result (80 percent) and 4 percent compared to the survey firm's Marcy 2011 rating (75 percent).
The President's performance rating also dipped by 8 percent from 79 percent in October last year and 3 percent from last March's 74 percent.
Pulse Asia, however, said that the difference from the President's ratings compared to the March 2011 survey "do not vary significantly."
The survey firm noted the plunge in President Aquino's approval rating. It said Aquino's performance approval rating in Metro Manila dipped to 57 percent or by 9 percent compared to October 2010's 78 percent.
Pulse Asia added that President Aquino's trust ratings in Metro Manila and Visayas declined by double digits (-13 and -14 percent, respectively) between March and May 2011. The President's approval rating in Visayas also went down by 15 percent.
Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said that the Pulse Asia survey's result shows that President Aquino's ratings remained at near-historical highs.
"The latest Ulat ng Bayan numbers reflect wide-ranging support for the administration's efforts to curb corruption, pursue inclusive growth, and provide basic services to the people. This, despite obvious attempts by the enemies of reform to stoke the fires of negativism," Lacierda said.
He said the President remains committed to leading the Philippines on the "straight and righteous path to equitable progress."
In a separate survey released by Social Weather Stations (SWS), the President's net rating slipped from a record high of 64 in November last year to 46 this month, with 64 percent of Filipinos saying they were satisfied with his performance and 18 percent dissatisfied.
The survey was conducted from June 3 to 6 among 1,200 respondents.
President Aquino's satisfaction rating also went down from March's +51 (69 percent satisfied, 18 percent dissatisfied). His March rating was also a decline from his +64 net rating in November 2010, which was also considered "very good."
SWS said Aquino's new scores, despite the drop, were all in the "good" and "very good" ranges across all areas, social classes and sex.
ABOUT SWS & PULSE ASIA The UP Forum - March-April 2011 - (Vol 12 Issue 2)
PHNO: The following report appeared at the University of the Philippines Forum <http://www.up.edu.ph/index.php>
Beyond forecasts: Reading the opinion polls Alicor L. Panao
Despite their apprehensions, politicians, it seems, cannot help but rely on opinion polls at various stages of their campaigns. Surveys not only help candidates decide whether to run or not by indicating their desirability to electorates, but also inform them of burning issues to which they can tailor their political platforms.
According to Social Weather Stations (SWS) president Dr. Mahar Mangahas, opinion polls have generally become essential in a modern democratic system. They provide a venue for the people to be heard in political situations such as elections and referendums. They allow leaders to gauge how people perceive and understand the political situation. "In a modern setting," Mangahas points out, "the scientific way to ascertain the popular will is through a survey."
Of course, the most important reason for the general acceptance of opinion polling in the country is their record of nearly consistent success in predicting the outcome of the elections.
An election survey, according to Pulse Asia President Prof. Felipe Miranda, may refer to any exercise which studies the probable outcome of an election, assuming that people could be made to yield their voting preferences. Opinion polls typically ask people whom they will vote for if the elections were held at that very moment. Miranda says that when it is scientifically done, there is a good chance that election surveys pretty much reflect the actual electoral results. "This would assume that in the process, there will not be much hanky-panky going on, the electoral laws will be properly observed, and those who are to administer the elections are able to do so in a non-partisan manner."
But the electoral system aside, there remains a number of issues that people need to understand about surveys.
Margin of error Opinion surveys—even scientifically conducted surveys—are still human endeavors so that even the best scientific poll can sometimes go wrong. "There is a margin of error involved," explains Miranda. "Surveys done scientifically will have a good chance of reflecting the pulse of the people, depending on the resources, the conditions of fieldwork, and the time the surveys were conducted."
Most surveys report a 95-percent confidence level and a plus or minus three percent margin of error. If, for example, in an election survey, 51% of people say they will vote for candidate A and that 49% say they will go for candidate B, we can be confident that the "true" number of candidate A's support is somewhere between 48% and 54% (51 plus/minus 3), and candidate B's is somewhere between 46% and 52% (49 plus/minus 3). If the gap between candidates is equal to or smaller than the margin of error, the poll cannot be a good gauge of who is leading. In fact, according to Miranda, it takes a gap at least twice as large as the margin of error for the poll to determine the leading candidate.
Related to misreading the margin of error is the skepticism over the accuracy with which a small sample of 1,200 respondents can predict the outcome of an election. To attain acceptable margins of error, sample sizes must be large enough to make an inference about the population being studied. Of course, while increasing the sample size decreases the margin of error relatively, a bigger sample also translates into a more expensive, fieldwork-intensive survey. Furthermore, there are surveys where even a sample of 5,000 would be small, while there are cases where 1,000 to 1,200 would be more than adequate. "It makes no difference whether we are talking about an American population of 300 million, a Chinese population of over a billion, or a Filipino population of 45 million adults."
Two of the country's most reputable research institutes, the SWS and Pulse Asia, typically poll 1,200 respondents in their studies. According to National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) chair and former UP School of Statistics professor Dr. Romulo Virola in a Feb. 9, 2004 NSCB website column, having "less than 2000 respondents is more than sufficient for election polls in our country of 84.2 million people and 43,536,028 registered voters." Statisticians employ a mathematical formula for computing the adequate size of a sample from which an inference can be made about the population, regardless of its size.
But why is there a need to reduce the margin of error? It all depends, says Miranda, on the level of precision the study wishes to address. If the contest is close, larger sample sizes may be needed to achieve meaningful and statistically significant results. Researchers may want to break down their poll results by gender, age, race, or income of the people in the sample. The study may require enough number of women in the overall sample, for instance, to ensure a reasonable margin of error among just the women.
Design pitfalls
The margin of error in the sample may just be one of the errors that can be quantified, but there are many other gaps that surveys have to be careful about.
Miranda notes that a poll can only be accurate the moment it is taken. In the case of election surveys, "The results can be different from what the survey predicts precisely because a candidate may or may not do something that is crucial to the election," he says. A scandal in the middle of the campaign or a candidate's switching from one political party to another may cause his or her ratings to fluctuate during the campaign period and eventually take a toll on the election outcome.
The dean of the UP School of Statistics, Dr. Lisa Grace Bersales, also warns about poll samples not being representative of the population due to faulty methodology. There are pollsters who limit their respondents to the people they encounter on the streets and risk the danger of asking those who may not even be concerned about the issue to begin with. "If you want to gauge the efficiency of the legal system, for instance, would you ask somebody who has not even experienced filing a case or being sued? Will you ask the general public whose opinion of the court is mostly a product of media and hearsay?"
Survey results may likewise be affected by response bias, where the answers given by respondents do not reflect their true beliefs. Respondents may deliberately try to manipulate the outcome of a poll, say, by advocating a more extreme position than they actually hold in order to boost their side of the argument or give rapid and ill-considered answers in order to hasten the end of the interview.
Response bias may also be deliberately engineered by unscrupulous pollsters in order to generate a certain result to please clients. The wording of the questions, the order in which they are asked, and the number and form of alternative answers offered can influence the results of polls. "In fact, for many researchers, question design is a lot more challenging than the quantitative part of this study," Miranda says. In designing questionnaires, both cultural context and linguistic precision are crucial. The one designing the form must have a feel for the respondents' values and the culture. "Unfortunately," he notes, "not too many social scientists are up to this task."
But the worst blunder, according to Bersales, lies in the interpretation or analysis of survey results. Aside from unscrupulous pollsters, the media is very much guilty of this error or crime. Journalists in search of stories often hype statistically insignificant changes in a candidate's standing or get duped into transmitting the images fashioned by campaigns due to their own failure to verify and examine the source of the polls. Moreover, the misinterpretation of poll results betrays the quantitative limitations of many journalists.
Public information
Election polls are said to influence voters in various ways. Polls are said to cause a bandwagon effect, prompting voters to back the candidate shown to be winning in the poll. Conversely, they can create an underdog effect by prompting voters to support the candidate trailing in the surveys.
Polls can have a motivating effect, raising awareness of an upcoming election and driving people to go to the precincts. They can also have a de-motivating effect when they convince people that survey-topping candidates are already certain of winning, regardless of their going out to vote. Finally, polls can have what is often referred to as the free will effect—they entice people to go out and cast their votes just to prove the polls wrong.
But it is difficult to ascertain which of these outcomes will likely prevail under which particular circumstances. Furthermore, Virola believes these claims should not deprive anyone of the right to choose and enjoy genuine freedom in a democratic system.
In 2001, the Foundation for Information, in its quest for empirical evidence to establish whatever influence election polls may have on voting and voting behavior, found that "any effects are difficult to prove and in any case are minimal." While opinion polls do provide a form of "interpretative assistance" which helps undecided voters make up their minds, the media is also full of such interpretative aids in the form of interviews and commentaries, making election polls relatively neutral.
For Mangahas, it does not even matter whether or not polls influence people's voting behavior.
"Opinion polling is merely listening to the public," he says. "It does not tell what the public should think or do."
And while surveys may provide everyone an opportunity to listen to the Filipino people's collective opinion, what to do with them is entirely up to the individual. "Whether you want to ride with them, resist them, or lie in the borderline is purely up to you," he insists. To complain that polls are questionable, according to Mangahas, is pretty much like saying there is something wrong with the freedom of speech.
Mangahas, however, notes that since polls can provide very accurate prognoses of how people will cast their votes, they have obvious implications for politicians and their fundraisers. Money is less likely to find its way to a candidate who is trailing behind in the surveys. On the other hand, funds will come more easily to candidates consistently topping the ratings.
Despite the accuracy of opinion polls in the country, according to Virola, many people, especially those supporting losing candidates, continue to question election survey results and even work against their publication. Concerns about how polls might affect votes have became so pressing that there have been attempts—one by means of a secret Comelec Resolution in 1998, and another by legislation (R.A. 9006 or the "Fair Election Act") in 2001—to literally ban the publication or broadcast of election surveys.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court, in a number of decisions, affirmed that freedom of expression as a constitutional guarantee also applies to surveys. The high court's decision on ABS-CBN v. Comelec (GR No. 133486, 28 January 2000) approved public exit polling, while SWS v. Comelec (GR No. 147571, 5 May 2001) approved the publication of election surveys at any time before an election, and declared as unconstitutional Sec. 5.4 of the Fair Election Act, which had previously banned the publication of election surveys within a specific time before an election. Interestingly, it was only on March 8 this year that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) added a note in its official website clarifying that Section 5.4 of RA 9006 had already been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Both the SWS and Pulse Asia make their databank accessible to the public to promote access to information.
The SWS, as a matter of policy, avoids proprietary or confidential surveys so research sponsors have no way of suppressing the use of data generated by the surveys they helped finance. In cases of commissioned surveys on highly sensitive topics, however, sponsors may obtain an embargo of data and research findings for a strictly temporary period. But as a matter of institutional policy, all SWS surveys ultimately become accessible to the public without need for prior permission from sponsors.
Pulse Asia, on the other hand, initiates its own research studies based on a regular monitoring of prominent public concerns at a national, regional, local, or sectoral level.
Pulse Asia solicits third-party sponsorships of or subscriptions for its research products. It also undertakes specific surveys at the request of interested parties. Like SWS, however, it does not undertake proprietary surveys where the client retains the exclusive right to the survey findings. All Pulse Asia surveys are made available to the general public within a year from the time they are released to a client.
Beacon of democracy
But more important than disseminating the results of surveys to the public, according to Miranda, is the fact that by so doing you are actually helping people learn more about themselves and others like them who feel similarly about issues. In this sense, he says, polls may actually be encouraging people toward greater participation in decision-making. Referring to elections, he says there is no political decision-making more important than identifying and electing into office people we feel are best suited to the position.
As a political scientist, Miranda believes polls are essential to a country's moving toward greater democratization by helping the public become a more mature, critical, and responsible electorate.
Polls also help people gain their sense of worth in governance and give them confidence that they wield political power. "This way people need not rely on politicians or newspaper columnists to tell them how things are; they may now be able to rely on what each one of us thinks."
"Polling is really education," says Miranda. "And democracy tends to become much better if you have a better informed, better educated public."
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