SWS serves Quezon City too

Although Social Weather Stations was officially born in August 1985, its first survey was fielded in the second quarter of 1986, and reported in the third quarter of that year, 25 years ago. Thus SWS last month celebrated the culmination of its silver jubilee year, counting from its 25th birthday in 2010, up to the silver anniversary of the first SWS survey report in 2011.

For the SWS fellows, staff members, and special guests assembled at the Philippine Social Science Center for the occasion, the highlight of the celebration was the presence of Quezon City Mayor Herbert M. Bautista, our guest of honor.

Most Filipinos probably know Herbert as the actor-son of movie actor Herminio “Butch” Bautista , who was, for me, the funniest original member of Fernando Poe Jr.’s “Low Waist Gang” film series in the early 1960s.  Herbert “Bistek” Bautista himself has performed in dozens of movies, and several television shows, mainly in comedy, per family tradition.

What fewer people know is Herbert’s solid preparation to be mayor of Quezon City. For work experience, he was QC vice mayor for 12 years—first from 1995 to 98, and then from 2001 to 2010. In terms of academics, he has a master’s degree in public administration from the National College of Public Administration and Governance of the University of the Philippines (where he continues work towards a doctorate), and also a master’s in national security administration from the National Defense College.

Given his academic background, Herbert is one who clearly understands the value of survey research for local governance.  He started commissioning SWS (located in Sikatuna Village, very near QC city hall) to do surveys for him when he was vice mayor.

I am thankful to him for sending the written portion of his speech at the last SWS general assembly, for use here today.  In it, he disclosed, for the first time in public, some findings of the latest SWS survey of Quezon City and their implications for his governance. Here’s that part of his speech:

“Congratulations to the SWS for 25 years of service.  I believe that in those 25 years, you have made many friends or foes, depending on the results of your surveys.  Your survey results are either pilloried, or exalted.  The most controversial must be the net satisfaction ratings that SWS publishes for top government officials.

“But what we can consider amazing is that even those who become your enemies now, somehow end up contracting your services at some future date.  That should say a lot about your credibility.

“I guess you are one of the few companies that people pay to contract the services, yet with the risk that the service may end up with information detrimental to their perceptions.  Imagine, sometimes we pay you for giving us bad news. [Note by MM: SWS is a private non-stock, non-profit scientific institute that supports itself mainly by contract work; it has no owners, and pays out no dividends.]

“My own experience with SWS is that at times, its surveys come with very painful revelations.  But there are also times when the results are very reassuring affirmations.  The bad news becomes the force that makes us face what the real problems are, and how our constituents perceive their situation to be.

“The most recent SWS survey for Quezon City informed us that drugs, peace and order, job availability and corruption, were at the top of our constituents’ list as far as their perception of the biggest problems in the city were.  The survey reinforced our findings on problems and priorities.  It urged us to reexamine our approaches—maybe our programs need retooling or redirecting.  It also showed us where interaction with national agencies needs strengthening.

“The survey also gave us a picture of people’s perception of our governance, and some of the findings were a real eye-opener!  So we are busy working to transform the bad news into ultimately good news.

“According to the survey, one of our most poorly addressed problems was the provision of housing for the marginalized.  This was a problem that kept being raised even before I became mayor.  This realization has pushed us to progress more significantly with our housing programs, which is a very difficult issue in Quezon City because we have more than 220,000 informal settlers.

“Just recently, we broke ground in a 1.56 hectare property in Payatas, which is being designed to house about 382 beneficiaries, 50 of whom will be public school teachers.  In a few weeks, we shall also launch our bigger project in Barangay Kaligayahan which will be able to accommodate almost 800 families.  These are on top of the thousands that we are resettling from danger areas, some of whom live on top of waterways, to dwelling units constructed by the National Housing Authority in Southville in Rodriguez, Rizal.

“We are not undertaking the housing challenge simply because of the survey results, but the survey did make us realize that we must push the program faster forward.

“So, as a suki of SWS, I have no doubt that your institution will survive another 25 or 50 years, through generations of Filipinos and leaders of different political affiliations, because you have established your credibility in relating to us the pulse of the people.  Oops, is that the name of your competitor?”  [MM: The mayor can’t help his showbiz roots!]

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Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.