Another good report card

The new people’s report card on the performance of the national administration (“admin” for short), issued this week (“Q3 NG satisfaction best since mid-2014,” BusinessWorld, 10/13/15), shows that current public contentment refers not only to top personalities and institutions of the government (see my “Contentment despite complaints,” Opinion, 10/10/15), but also to many specific subject matters.

The bottom line is Good. Let us start with the bottom line, which is the satisfaction with the national admin, based on responses to one general question about its overall performance, rather than an average of the responses to the questions on the individual subject matters. The Sept. 2-5, 2015, Social Weather Survey found 59 percent of Filipino adults satisfied, and only 22 percent dissatisfied, with the said overall performance. The difference between the two numbers is a Net Satisfaction of +37, which SWS classifies as Good (between +30 and +49).

This +37 rating is six points over the already Good +31 in June 2015, and 18 points over the admin’s low point of +19 last March, which was obviously colored by the Mamasapano incident.   That +19 in June this year and a +29 in June last year are the only two Moderate (between +10 and +29) bottom-line scores in the current admin’s report card ever since mid-2010; all the others are either Good or Very Good (+50 to +69).

The P-Noy admin’s running bottom-line is the best of all admins thus far. In fact, the average bottom-line score for the 21 quarters of the P-Noy admin thus far is +47.4. This compares with average scores of +4.6 for the entire admin of Cory Aquino, +13.9 for that of Fidel Ramos, +15.3 for that of Joseph Estrada, and -1.9 for that of Gloria Arroyo.

The averages of the admins of Cory Aquino and Arroyo are classified by SWS as “Neutral” (between -9 and +9).   Those of the admins of Ramos and Estrada are Moderate.

Different subject matters get different grades. As usual, the degree of public satisfaction with the admin depends on the subject matter. In the 23 “subjects” of the Third Quarter report, five of the grades are Good, nine are Moderate, eight are Neutral, and one is Bad.

The Good grades are: Providing enough supply of electricity (+44), Helping the poor (+39), Foreign relations (+37), Promoting the welfare of OFWs (+34), and Promoting human rights (+31).

The Moderate ones are: Preparing for climate change (+29), Defending the country’s territorial rights (+28), Improving the quality of airports (+28), Transparency of government activities (+23), Giving justice (+18), Restoring peace to Mindanao (+18), Eradicating graft and corruption (+15), Deciding quickly on important problems (+15), and Fighting terrorism (+12).

The Neutral grades are: Traffic management (+6), Fighting inflation (+5), Ensuring oil firms don’t take advantage of oil prices (+5), Rehabilitating areas damaged by conflict in Mindanao (+5). Reconciliation with communist rebels (+4), Fighting crimes (+4), Ensuring that no family will ever be hungry (+3), and Reconciliation with Muslim rebels (0).

The sole Bad grade is on the matter of Resolving the Maguindanao massacre case with justice (-47). “Bad” means between -30 and -49.

The grades look even better from a long-run perspective. To fully appreciate any subject in the current report card, one should view the entire time-series of previous grades on the said subject, in the past 30 years. Every new posting of a report card on the SWS website includes a time-chart of all past grades in each subject.

The most important improvement in admin performance is in fighting graft and corruption, which is a permanent subject in the SWS report card. In the P-Noy admin, every single one of the quarterly grades on this subject has been positive. On the other hand, this subject got positive grades only twice in the time of Cory Aquino, only once in Ramos’ time, only three times in Estrada’s time, and only once in Arroyo’s time.

Also very notable is the grade for fighting inflation, which consistently got negative grades during all the admins from Cory Aquino to Arroyo. Fighting inflation is also a permanent subject in the card. Under P-Noy, however, the great majority of its grades are positive.

The problem of traffic is parochial. The numbers above, all published, are the survey findings on the national level. But public opinion on a matter like traffic management varies, naturally, with the circumstances of the respondent.

The Net Satisfaction with the admin’s performance in traffic management, in September 2015, is +6 in the nation as a whole. It is -5 in the National Capital Region, and -1 in the Balance of Luzon; both of these scores are still called Neutral, since they are only single-digit negatives.

However, the scores of the admin are Poor (between -10 and -29) from the viewpoints of people in the middle-to-upper ABC classes, who score it at -12, and those with college degrees, who score it at -20. Obviously, these are the people affected the most by the state of traffic.

If SWS doesn’t publish every demographic detail right away, it’s in order to keep some information to share with clients quickly, and thus give their patronage more value. SWS takes pride in being self-supporting, and shouldn’t be begrudged for finding some opportunities for making its living.

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