Poll: Admin good on foreign affairs, poor on corruption

The Arroyo administration received a high public satisfaction rating on foreign relations but was rated poor on fighting inflation, corruption and hunger, the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey revealed yesterday.

“The national administration is rated highly by the public on the matter of foreign relations, but poorly on the issues of fighting inflation, eradicating graft and corruption, and ensuring that no family will be hungry,” the SWS said in its survey that was conducted from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2007.

The administration rated positively in three out of 10 issues, the SWS said.

Of ten topics tested, three obtained positive ratings, three had neutral ratings, and four received clearly negative scores.

The December 2007 survey found 45 percent satisfied and 25 percent dissatisfied with the performance of the national administration on the issue of foreign relations, for a positive net satisfaction rating of +20 (percentage of satisfied minus percentage dissatisfied).

The national administration also received positive marks on the issues of reconciling with Muslim rebels, at +13 (43 percent satisfied, 30 percent dissatisfied), and fighting terrorism, with +12 (46 percent satisfied, 34 percent dissatisfied).

Net satisfaction with the national administration is neutral for helping the poor, with net +4 (45 percent satisfied, 41 percent dissatisfied); promoting human rights, at +2 (40 percent satisfied, 38 percent dissatisfied); and fighting crimes, at –5 (36 percent satisfied, 41 percent dissatisfied). Single-digit net rating is considered neutral.

The national administration, meanwhile, obtained negative scores on the issues of telling the truth to the people, with net –11 (33 percent satisfied, 44 percent dissatisfied); ensuring that no family will be hungry, with net –22 (28 percent satisfied, 50 percent dissatisfied); eradicating graft and corruption, with net –29 (26 percent satisfied, 55 percent dissatisfied); and fighting inflation, with net –29 (28 percent satisfied, 57 percent dissatisfied).

Of the ten issues that were scored, nine experienced decline in public satisfaction, the SWS said.

Compared to September, the net satisfaction rating of the national administration on reconciling with Muslim rebels went from +16 to +13, declining by three points.

Fighting terrorism declined by nine points, from +21 to +12. It has been generally positive, turning neutral only in the first and second quarters of 2005, at net +3 and –2, respectively. It ranged from +6 to +21 in the past two years, the SWS said.

The national administration’s net satisfaction rating on helping the poor declined by 14 points, from +18 in September to +4 in December. Since recovering from –7 in May 2005, it has trended upward, ranging from –4 to +25 in the past two years, the survey firm said.

Promoting human rights, last surveyed in June 2006, declined by seven points, from +9 to +2.

Net satisfaction on fighting crime went down by 10 points, from +5 in September to –5 in December. It ranged from –9 to +10 in the past two years after recovering from a negative –12 score in December 2004.

Telling the truth to the people, which was last probed in November 2006, went down by 14 points, from +3 to –11.

The administration’s net satisfaction rating on ensuring that no family will go hungry went from –17 to –22, declining by five points. Dissatisfaction has dominated this topic since SWS first surveyed it in August 2005, when the net rating was –31, and reached a record low of –34 in March 2006.

Eradicating graft and corruption declined by 13 points, from –16 to –29. “Dissatisfaction with the National Administration traditionally prevails on this matter, turning neutral or slightly positive only during the start of a new administration,” it said.

Net satisfaction on fighting inflation went down by 15 points, from –14 in September to –29 in December. “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,” SWS said.

“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. It ranged from +19 to +32 since recovering from net +15 in May 2005. The December 2007 score of +20 is similar to +21 in the previous quarter,” the SWS said.

The Fourth Quarter of 2007 Social Weather Survey used 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.

The survey has sampling error margins of plus or minus three percent for national percentages and plus or minus six percent for area percentages.