Much more than elections

It’s been traditional, since 2001, for Social Weather Stations (SWS) to give a public summary, at the Asian Institute of Management, of its previous year’s surveys. The event’s silver anniversary was marked this week by the 42-slide presentation of “The 2025 SWS Survey Review,” by Gerardo “Jay” Sandoval, SWS vice president/COO (posted at www.sws.org.ph, 2/19/25).

The 2025 review covers findings from the regular 2024 Social Weather Report surveys of adults on March 21-28, June 3-July 1, Sept. 14-23, and Dec. 17-20, and from a special SWS national survey of registered voters in Jan. 17-20, 2025. SWS-watchers will be familiar with many, but definitely not all, of them, since last Wednesday was their first release. A slide titled “Survey Menu,” puts asterisks on items posted for the first time; as a rule, this column does not scoop SWS survey findings.

Voter preferences are not the only things that matter. The 2025 review gives the status of the senatorial and party list races for the May election, as of last December and last month, from surveys commissioned by Stratbase ADR Institute for Strategic and International Studies (posted 1/30/25). SWS will do at least two more rounds before the May election, which is over two months away. The candidates’ standings have much room for change, especially since voters’ fill-up rates are still low.

In the January 2025 survey, a large majority expects an honest count at the precinct, but opinions are split about cheating at levels other than the precinct. Two-thirds feel that popular support, rather than political machinery, is the basis for winning. A majority use personality, rather than platform as their basis for selecting senatorial candidates.

The people’s economic well-being definitely declined in 2024. This was being shown year-round by the SWS quarterly indicators of poverty and hunger (see “Self-Rated Poverty stays high,” 10/12/24 and “Backsliding in hunger,” 10/26/24). Last December’s 63 percent of families rating themselves poor was the highest since 2003. Hunger was then at 26 percent of families; joblessness was at 35 percent of adults.

Though gainers still exceed losers, and optimists still exceed pessimists, their dominance has fallen. In January 2025, the net gainers score was down to +7 (posted 2/7/25).

Happiness and satisfaction with life, surveyed last December, fell from the year before. Although the rate of inflation may have subsided, it is still not low enough, considering the people’s sluggish purchasing power. As of January 2025, 58 percent considered the administration’s solutions for inflation as sufficient, whereas 16 percent considered them as insufficient.

The satisfaction ratings of top officials, institutions, and national administration are way past the honeymoon period. As of last December, the net satisfaction with President Marcos Jr. was +9, and that of Vice President Sara Duterte was +15, both their record lows. The ratings of the Senate (+44) and the House of Representatives (+36) have fallen a lot but are decent. In the national administration’s “report card,” the subjects needing improvement, as of December, were: fighting inflation (net -12), eradicating graft and corruption (net -3), and ensuring that no oil companies take advantage (net -2).

The impeachment of Vice-President Sara Duterte is relatively popular. Last December, half of Filipino adults already knew about the impeachment complaint against her. A plurality of them agreed with it. The unexplained use of confidential and intelligence funds topped the people’s grounds for impeachment (posted 1/8/25).

The investigation by the International Criminal Court has public support. The four polls about the ICC investigations of drug-related killings during the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, two each in 2023 and 2024, all found high approval. The latest one, in June 2024, found approval at over two to one.

Crime victimization and public insecurity are on the rise. Victimization by common crimes and cybercrime trended upward in 2024. In the neighborhood, the fear of burglary, lack of safety walking in the neighborhood at night, and the presence of drug addicts has been rising since 2022.

As of December 2024, 8 percent of families had been victimized by crimes against property, 6 percent had been hit by cybercrimes, and 1 percent had suffered physical violence, in the past six months.

The spirit of Edsa 1986 is alive. Those calling the Edsa spirit definitely/somewhat alive were 60 percent in May 2024, or close to the 63 percent in December 2022. I doubt that next week’s celebrations will disappoint them.

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Contact: mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.