In the program of the presentation of a Citizen Reform Agenda to a broad civil society audience, last Sept. 2 at Edsa Shangri-La Hotel, the topic assigned to me was ?Expectations of the Filipino people? for the 2010 elections. Since the SWS surveys have not exactly asked questions like ?What do you expect ??, I spoke on ?Public opinion in the Philippines relevant to 2010,? outlining what I see as the most relevant characteristics of public opinion. None of these points have to do with identifying candidates for whom the people intend to vote.
1. Unpopularity of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It is an outstanding fact that most Filipinos have been dissatisfied with the president?s performance throughout the past five years. In contrast, during the 2004 election campaign, the public?s regard for Arroyo was either moderate or neutral.
President Arroyo wasn?t alone as an increasingly unpopular leader. The ratings of US President George W. Bush over 2001-08 collapsed as much. Common sense says that it will be just as hard for Arroyo?s candidate to win in 2010 as it was for Bush?s candidate to win in 2008. The main task of her candidate will be to convince the public that he/she will be very different.
Another outstanding fact is that Filipinos will definitely reject any constitutional amendment allowing Arroyo to stay as the country?s chief executive, when put to a referendum. The SWS survey percentage intending to vote NO to Cha-cha was 64 in October 2008, and rose to 66 in February 2009, and then to 70 in June 2009.
These are consistent with the following provision of the draft Covenant for Reform in 2010: There is a strong clamor for change by the Filipino people.
2. Serious problems of hunger and corruption. The highly alarming economic trend shown by the SWS surveys is that hunger quadrupled in the last six years?from 5 percent in 2003 to 20 percent in June 2009.
The two areas of highest public dissatisfaction with the performance of the national administration are in addressing hunger and corruption, both at -21 in our latest survey (SWS media release August 10, 2009).
This is consistent with another provision of the draft Covenant: Corruption has never been this bad. We must end it.
3. Public satisfaction with the working of democracy needs to recover. ?Satisfaction with the way democracy works? is a world-standard survey item, originating in Eurobarometer, and now used by Latinobarometro, Asian Barometer, and other regional barometers. I had to report that, according to the 2005/06 Asian Barometer, the percentage satisfied with the working of democracy was only 38 in the Philippines, compared to 59 in Indonesia, 66 in Malaysia, 79 in Thailand, and 83 in Singapore.
SWS has tracked this indicator since 1991, and found it obviously related to public satisfaction with elections. It had outstanding peaks of 70 percent satisfaction in October 1992 and July 1998, in the first surveys taken after the presidential elections of those years showed that transition of power was done successfully.
Unfortunately, in non-election years the satisfaction rate slumped to the 30s and 40s. The fact that it did not budge in mid-2004 (44 percent in June 2004) showed public disappointment in the just-concluded presidential election. Its recovery to 54 in 2007, after the opposition won the senatorial election, was a good sign, but its latest figure is only 43. Can the Philippines achieve 70 percent again after the May 2010 election?
The draft Covenant says: The 2010 elections will be pivotal in redirecting our country from its current path of worsening poverty and social decay.
4. Expectations and experiences of voting irregularities. The percentage expecting vote-buying before an election was 57 in April 1992, dropped in April 2001 and April 2004, but then surged to 69 in February 2007. The percentages expecting vote count-cheating, flying voters, and voter-harassment likewise dropped from 1992 to 2004, but rose in early 2007. These are worrisome numbers.
On the other hand, the personal witnessing of voting irregularities after an election has been going down over time. The percentage who said they witnessed vote-buying was 17 in June 1998, 23 in July 2001, and 19 in June 2004, but it fell to 13 in June 2007. The percentage who saw cheating in the vote-count was five in 1998, but only two in 2007. The percentages who witnessed flying voters and voter-harassment were also lower after the 2007 election than after the 1998 election. I hope these figures do not merely mean that such irregularities are being better hidden over time.
In closing, I addressed the issue of the public?s possible reaction to Mar Roxas? withdrawal, in favor of Noynoy Aquino, of his bid to be the Liberal Party candidate for president. In the SWS-initiated probes of who are the ?best leaders to succeed GMA,? without pre-listing names for respondents to choose from, Noynoy has not yet made a mark (SWS release, July 22, 2009). In light of new events, I look forward to what the next SWS survey round finds.
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Citizen Reform Agenda 2010 or CReforms 2010 is a consultation process initiated by the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG) that assembles a very broad representation of citizen organizations to identify key reform issues that must be addressed in 2010. Bringing together 100 citizen organizations, it produced five Agenda Papers which were the basis for a draft Covenant for Reforms in 2010. CReform 2010 engages candidates and political parties to commit to the covenant and respond to the issues in the Agenda Papers. The ASoG, headed by Dean Antonio La Vińa tonylavs@gmail.com, is in the Ateneo Loyola campus.
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Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.
