The start of a new year is a traditional and sensible time to look back on the old one. Let us review some major lessons learned in the past year from Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey respondents, to whom, as always, we are deeply indebted.

Hunger rose to record heights. Being an economist who values distributive justice over productive efficiency, I must start by emphasizing that 2007 was the year with the highest proportions of Filipinos suffering from hunger, ever since Social Weather Stations started monitoring it quarterly in 1998.

On January 2nd, the first SWS media release title for 2008, “Involuntary hunger eases to 16.2%,” was, thank goodness, a relief from the awful one of October 1st, 2007 which said “Hunger rises to new record-high of 21.5%.” The two figures are from the 2007 Fourth Quarter and Third Quarter SWS surveys respectively.

Hunger grew very rapidly in the past four years. Across the quarters of each year, the hunger percentage range was 5.1 to 9.4 in 2003, and became 7.4 to 15.1 in 2004, 12.0 to 16.7 in 2005, 13.9 to 19.0 in 2006, and 14.7 to 21.5 in 2007. (A single quarter’s decline in hunger is no basis for complacency. The latest figure is still well above the hunger average of 11.9 percent since 1998. One cannot speak of a “downward trend” until at least two consecutive declines occur—but the last time this happened was in 2003.)

The worsening of hunger happened at the same time that growth in the gross national product (GNP) accelerated. Thus, however important the recent GNP growth was to some people, it was socially meaningless, since it did not help to relieve the lot of the poorest of the poor.

After the over-stress on GNP, the next-worst error in economic journalism was the use of the exchange rate between dollars and pesos as a proxy for Filipino wellbeing. SWS reported on Nov. 12 that “The stronger peso hurts 30%, helps 13%, and has no effect on 57% of families”; yet, if the numbers 30 and 13 had been interchanged, the exchange rate would have been equally meaningless.

Dissatisfaction with national governance continued. As each quarter passed last year, the President’s main survey achievement seemed to be in prolonging her streak of negative ratings, which has now reached 14 consecutive quarters. The occasional popular move has made no dent -- “Arroyo’s net satisfaction rating falls to -16, even if 54% approved her pardon of Estrada,” said SWS last Dec. 18.

As new controversies arise, but are left hanging, the administration’s mantra of “moving on” gets less convincing. Interestingly, many of the issues involved the Commission on Elections (Comelec) -- no one was held accountable for its Mega Pacific deal of 2004, even though voided by the Supreme Court and sent to the Ombudsman for action; no real penalty was meted out to former Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, after his wiretapped conversations became public in 2005. And nothing was done about the manipulations of Lintang Bedol in 2007.

The opposition led the election race from the start. No administration needs to be popular at all times, but if it is too unpopular, then, in a democracy, it is eventually held accountable by the electorate.

The SWS election survey reports of 2007 (to which the Inquirer obtained first publication rights) said: (March 7) “Opposition leads senate race by 9-3”; (March 27) “The Senate score: Genuine Opposition 6 or 7, Team Unity 4 or 3, Independent 2”; (April 24) “Senate race standings: GO 5, IND. 1, TU 3; 3 GOs, 1 IND., 2 TUs contend for last three slots”; and (May 10) “At the Senate homestretch: GO 6, IND. 2, TU 4” -- which spotted Antonio Trillanes’ surging, even if he had not quite entered the winning circle yet.

As usual, Filipino voters told pollsters the truth about their voting intentions; there were no real surprises. Taking all candidates, both winners and losers, into account, the correlation of the ranks of candidates in the final SWS pre-election survey of May 2-4, 2007 with the ranks in the Comelec outcome of the May 14, 2007 election was 97%.

Filipinos voted rationally and independently. The SWS 2007 surveys dealt not merely with the race, but with the entire voting process. Among the SWS media reports prior to the election were: (April 16) “Four out of five say that command voting does not prevail in their area”; (April 27) “Most Filipinos deny self-interest, the bandwagon, and political machinery”; (May 12) “Most voters have studied lengthily, are deciding on their own, will bring a list, and are already committed”; and also (May 12) “Expected election irregularities recently simmered down somewhat -- vote buying 57%, ‘dagdag-bawas’ [vote-padding and vote-shaving] 45%, flying voters 41%, and harassment 30%.”

The SWS pre-election surveys also found: (May 18) “Going into the election, voters had much trust for the teacher-poll workers, PPCRV [Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting] and Namfrel [National Citizens Movement for Free Elections], and felt that the military and the police would be neutral”; and (May 24) “The effect of surveys on voting plans was tiny, and pro-underdog.”

Finally, on Sept. 11, SWS reported that “Satisfaction with how democracy works recovers to 54%.” An election-related improvement like this also happened in 1992 and 1998, but not in 2004.

As usual, disgruntled politicians harassed opinion polling through various tactics. Fortunately, however, our democracy guarantees freedom of expression not only to individuals, but also, according to Supreme Court rulings, to the collective public as assessed by opinion polls.

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Contact Social Weather Stations: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.

More Inquirer columns

Previous columns:
Statistics for justice- 12/29/07
Happy or sad on Christmas?- 12/22/07
A Filipino definition of social justice - 12/15/07
Agrarian reform through peaceful means – 12/08/07
Walking 1,600 km for social justicev – 12/01/07