Corona and the Supreme Court

Last week, I contrasted the poor satisfaction rating of Chief Justice Renato Corona (net -14) to the moderately positive satisfaction rating of the Supreme Court (net +21), based on the SWS national survey of Dec. 3-7, 2011, to show that the Filipino people make a distinction between the person and the institution.  Now I will share some demographics and cross tabulations, to further clarify the state of public opinion in early December.

The survey respondents surely had an inkling of the bad blood between President Aquino and the Chief Justice.  Some of them may have been aware of the President’s Dec. 5 speech at the Manila Hotel, in which he lambasted Corona to the latter’s face. But very few of them could have anticipated, I think, that Corona would be impeached the following week, by Dec. 12.

The figures given here are neither meant to praise, whenever positive, nor to denigrate, whenever negative.  They should be of interest to both supporters and critics of the institution and its head.

Geography. Corona’s national rating was the average of poor ratings in the National Capital Region (-19) and the Balance of Luzon (-20) together with neutral-negative ratings in the Visayas (-5) and Mindanao (-4).

A single-digit net satisfaction rating, whether positive or negative, is called “neutral” since it is not too different from zero, which is a split opinion.  Once a negative rating reaches double-digit, it is called “poor”.  The NCR and Balance of Luzon ratings of Corona, being midway between borderline “poor” and borderline “bad” (which starts at -30), outweighed the Visayan and Mindanao ratings enough to convert his national rating to “poor”.

The Supreme Court’s national rating was the average of moderate ratings in the NCR (+21), the Balance of Luzon (+12), and Mindanao (+28), and a good rating in the Visayas (+35).  Thus, like Corona, it was more popular in the south than in the north.

Corona’s net rating was poor in urban areas (-18), and neutral in rural areas (-8).  Similarly, the Supreme Court’s rating was not as high in urban areas (+19) as in rural areas (+24).

Socio-economic class and education. The higher the class, and the more the education, the lower was public satisfaction with Corona.  He scored a neutral -5 in the very poor Class E, a poor -16 in the mass class D, and a worse -24 in the middle-to-upper ABC classes.

Corona’s scores of net -11 among the elementary school leavers, and -9 among elementary graduates (up to some high school), were about the same.  They fell to -15 among high school graduates (up to some college) and -26 among college graduates.

The regard for the Supreme Court also tended to fall with class: +24 among Class Es, +21 among Class Ds, and +16 among Class ABCs.  But it rose at first with education, with +18 among elementary school leavers, +19 among elementary graduates, and +25 among high school graduates, before declining to +17 among college graduates.

The correlation of public satisfaction. The Supreme Court’s moderate net satisfaction of +21 was due to a plurality of 46 percent satisfied with its performance, and a minority of 25 percent dissatisfied with it.  Fully one-fourth (26 percent) sat on the fence between satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the Supreme Court, and a few others had no answer. (I think the reason  many are still puzzled about net scoring is that they forget that fence-sitting is a legitimate response.)

Although those satisfied with the Supreme Court were below an absolute majority, they carried the consensus, by a clear 21-point spread over the negative side.  This group of people also looked more kindly towards Corona, with 35 percent satisfied and 30 percent dissatisfied with him, for a neutral-positive rating of +5.

Among the fence-sitters on the other hand, only 9 percent were satisfied with Corona whereas 28 percent were dissatisfied with him, for a poor net score of -19; the great majority were indifferent or had no answer.

Among those dissatisfied with the Supreme Court, only 11 percent were satisfied with Corona, whereas a majority 54 percent were dissatisfied with him, for a “bad” net score of -42 (correctly rounded); only about one in three were indifferent or couldn’t answer.  Thus, were it not for the generally positive reputation of the Supreme Court, Corona’s overall rating would be even lower.

It is not quite right to say that people feel good/bad about Corona due to good/bad feelings about the Supreme Court, nor to say that they feel good/bad about the Supreme Court due to good/bad feelings about Corona. Correlation simply means that good/bad feelings towards the two tend to go hand in hand.

Corona and Gloria. As first reported in

BusinessWorld on Dec. 26, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was trusted by only 12 percent, and distrusted by 73 percent, for a “very bad” net trust rating of -62, in the SWS survey of early December.  At that time she had already been under detention for two weeks, after the administration successfully resisted the Supreme Court’s order to allow her to travel abroad.

As may be expected, there was also a correlation between satisfaction with Corona and trust in GMA.  Those few having trust in her gave Corona a moderate net satisfaction rating of +12.  The equally few with neutral feelings about her gave him a neutral rating of +2.  But the great majority who distrusted her, and gave Corona a poor rating of -21, carried the day.

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Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or [email protected]. Thanks to Josefina Mar of SWS for special tabulations.