Can it be that Jojo Binay has lost some clout with the public, falling in its esteem not so inconsequentially? So the SWS says, by all of eight points, from an “excellent” 70 to a “good” 62. Binay is disbelieving, saying he is perplexed by that finding. Not least because Pulse Asia says the opposite: He is going up and not down.
The essence of the current complaint of Rep. Tobias “Toby” Tiangco, secretary general of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), against Social Weather Stations, which he brought to the attention of the Commission on Elections, has boiled down to the proper interpretation of the words “paid for.”
I write as one of the 9.2 percent of adult Catholics in the Philippines who, according to the recent Social Weather Stations survey, have sometimes thought of leaving the Catholic Church. These instances occurred mostly in the “bad old days” before Cardinal Jaime Sin gave a new face to the Archdiocese of Manila. There have [...]
A survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) in February this year highlights three interesting findings on the state of Catholicism in the Philippines. First, that weekly church attendance has significantly gone down from a high of 64 percent in July 1991 to a low of 37 percent in February 2013. Second, that only 29 percent of Filipino Catholics consider themselves “very religious,” compared to 50 percent among Protestants, 43 percent among Iglesia ni Cristo members, and 38 percent among Muslims. And finally, that 9.2 percent (one out of 11) “sometimes think of leaving the Church.” Are these findings indicative of a looming crisis of faith among Filipino Catholics?
The results of the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey on leaving the Church (for Catholics) and church attendance (for both Catholics and non-Catholics) seem to have elicited misguided and, for me, dismaying responses from some clergy.
This visit has been short, tiring, and also satisfying. It was sheer good luck that I was able to catch the excellent special exhibition on precolonial Philippines, which opened at 10 a.m. on Tuesday at the museum Quai Branly, with just enough time left before my official business started at 2 p.m. that day. (I guess Vice President Jejomar Binay got an advance viewing when he was here on Monday.)
The results of the recent Social Weather Stations survey on Roman Catholic (I’ll use “Catholic” from here on, for convenience) belief and practice in the Philippines have caused a stir, particularly the figure of 9 percent of respondents agreeing with the statement “Sometimes I think I might leave the Church” and another showing regular (meaning weekly) Mass attendance dropping from 66 percent in 1991 to 43 percent in 2013. (See sws.org.ph for the full report.)
The very preelection survey of Social Weather Stations was in the period Feb. 24-March 21, 1987, during the campaign for 24 Senate slots in the May election that year. It found an exact 12-12 tie between the pro-Cory and anti-Cory candidates.
The latest Social Weather Stations survey hints at an electoral landscape in a wild flux. Just last January, United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) candidate Jack Enrile, son of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, was riding high in the poll with a 46-percent rating, ranking 8-9 in the senatorial derby. Now he’s down to rank 13, with a 38-percent survey rating.
The general message of the SWS 2013 Annual Survey Review, given last Thursday at the Asian Institute of Management Conference Center, is that 2012 was quite a good year. Some highlights follow.
Like in 2011, hunger and poverty happened to move in opposite directions over two successive quarters. Two weeks ago, the BusinessWorld headline was “Fewer families go hungry” (1/7/13); this week BW said “More Filipino families view themselves as poor” (1/14/13). These reports were based on comparisons of the latest two SWS surveys, showing a drop in hunger by almost 5 points, and a rise in poverty by 7 points, over the third and fourth quarters of 2012.
Imagine a very large building capable of housing all government officials, with each one assigned an office on a floor commensurate to the distribution of satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the citizenry with an official’s performance.
