High performance; higher expectations

BY HISTORICAL standards, the Filipino people achieved more in the past six years than under any previous administration. My recent columns pointed out the extensive survey evidence about, firstly, the Filipino people’s satisfaction with how they were governed (“New standards of governance,” 7/2/16, and “P-Noy raised the bar,” 6/25/16) and, secondly, their progress in general wellbeing (“It’s not the economy, stupid,” 6/4/16, and “Favorable news about poverty,” 5/28/16).

The people did not give perfect scores to the performance of the P-Noy administration, but their grades were clearly superior to those they had given to the administrations of Gloria Arroyo, Joseph Estrada, Fidel Ramos, and Cory Aquino. (I think most Filipinos would rate any of the post-Marcos administrations as preferable to being under a dictatorship. I don’t have data on the popularity of pre-Marcos presidents, but my favorite would be Ramon Magsaysay. Opinion polling started in Magsaysay’s time, but the records are lost.)

The past election was not a referendum to compare the performance of the outgoing administration to earlier ones. Rather, it was a contest, judged by the electorate, as to who among the candidates gave the best expectation of improving on what was already achieved. Maybe SWS will survey expectations sometime.

The First Quarter 2016 Report Card. The recent SWS report, “Net satisfaction with the National Administration at ‘Good’ +35” (www.sws.org.ph, 6/24/16), has the P-Noy administration’s report card based on the Social Weather Survey of March 30 to April 2, 2016. Of its 16 “subjects,” three are graded Good (net satisfaction of +30 to +49), five are graded Moderate (+10 to +29), and eight are graded Neutral (-9 to+9). The overall Good +35 results from a separate survey question; it is not an average of the grades in the various subjects.

The subjects with Good grades are: Helping the poor (+43), Foreign relations (+36), and Promoting the welfare of overseas Filipino workers (+34).

Those with Moderate grades are: Protecting consumer rights (+29), Defending the country’s territorial rights (+28), Planning government programs (+27), Providing jobs (+23), and Restoring peace to Mindanao (+16).

Those with Neutral grades are: Fighting terrorism (+7), Fighting crimes (+4), Reconciliation with Muslim rebels (+4), Rehabilitating areas damaged by conflict in Mindanao (+4), Ensuring that no family will go hungry (+3), Eradicating graft and corruption (+2), Reconciliation with Communist rebels (-2), and Fighting inflation (-3).
We sincerely hope that the Duterte administration will improve on those grades. Historically, however, grades of Neutral (or worse) in certain subjects tend to be chronic. Fighting crime most likely has the greatest popular expectation for the Duterte administration to do better than its predecessors.

For me as an economist, the subject of inflation matters the most, because a rise in the cost of living is shown by econometric research as the strongest determinant of poverty and hunger. The moderately successful performance of the P-Noy administration in reducing them is due to the mildness of inflation in the past six years; it is not due to growth in the Gross National Product.

(Note: In due time, SWS will issue one final quarterly report card for the P-Noy administration, based on a survey fielded in the last week of June.)

Poverty and hunger have toned down. In 2016’s first quarter (2016Q1 for short), a fairly low 46 percent of families rated themselves as poor, and a record low 31 percent rated themselves as food-poor (BusinessWorld, 5/27/16).

Those that experienced hunger, involuntarily, in the past three months were 13.7 percent—11.6 percent only once or a few times, plus 2.1 percent often or always (BusinessWorld, 7/4/16). The recent 13.7 percent is 2 points higher than the hunger rate one quarter earlier, but to me this is not alarming since it is only slightly above the average 13.4 of 2015, and is far below all the averages of 2005-14 (see “Is hunger getting over the hump?”, Opinion, 1/31/15).

Recently, more people are getting better off than worse off. For five consecutive survey rounds, from 2015Q1 to 2016Q1, the people telling the SWS interviewers that their quality of life improved in the past 12 months have exceeded those saying that it deteriorated. Having more “Gainers” than “Losers” only happened twice before, once in 1986 and once in 1987. Development cannot be inclusive unless Gainers consistently exceed Losers.
In 2016Q1, Gainers exceeded Losers by 3 points nationally, but not by the same margin in all areas and groups. The 2016Q1 SWS survey has an excess of Losers by 12 points in Mindanao, and by 6 points in Class E (“It’s not the economy, stupid,” Opinion, 6/4/16).

Further study of the 2016Q1 survey also reveals an 11-point excess of Losers among those from hungry families, versus a 5-point excess of Gainers among those from nonhungry families. There is a 12-point excess of Losers among the self-rated poor, versus a 24-point excess of Gainers among the self-rated nonpoor. (Note: Hunger and poverty are surveyed as a family-experience, not an individual-experience.)

Being poor and also hungry at a point in time, and moreover getting worse off over time, is called a crystallization of deprivation. It deserves more research than economic growth.

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Special tabulations used here were done by Josefina Mar of SWS. Contact mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.