The SWS annual scoreboard

This week, Social Weather Stations (SWS) continued its tradition of summarizing its past year’s work, in “The 2026 SWS Survey Review,” by SWS vice president/COO Gerardo “Jay” A. Sandoval (available on www.sws.org.ph, 2/19/26). The review covered (a) five national surveys, done monthly from January to May, in line with the 2025 senatorial election; (b) four national surveys about the “social weather” done last April, June, September, and November; and (c) a special Mega Manila survey on government corruption, done in the National Capital Region and some adjacent provinces in October. These are all first-class, gold-standard, scientific surveys, conducted face-to-face on probability samples of respondents, with original raw data permanently archived.

The five election campaign surveys were sponsored by Stratbase Consultancy (stratbase.com.ph) for public disclosure, and covered registered voters. Their publication is specifically protected by a 2001 Supreme Court ruling in favor of an SWS petition that preelection polling is included in the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech. The ranking of candidates in the final Stratbase preelection survey is highly correlated to that of the official tally (see my “Electoral race patterns,” 5/31/25).

The other five surveys covered adults (i.e. voting age, whether or not registered to vote), and were done on SWS’ own account as a public service. They are affordable to conduct regularly, thanks to other work done by SWS for paying clients—both private and government—but embargoed (temporarily).

Much, but certainly not all, of the data in the annual review already appeared in the SWS website last year, piece by piece. But there are still a number of scoops that knowledgeable readers will see for the first time. Among the many special topics are the opinions about the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte, the International Criminal Court case against former President Rodrigo Duterte, political dynasties, fake news, gender ideology, and the Parent Welfare Act of 2025. The contents of a year’s surveys are so broad and varied that they become indigestible if laid out all at once.

The contents of the “social weather” are the familiar SWS indicators that regularly track human well-being and the quality of governance. Many of these indicators are generated quarterly, such as the states of poverty, hunger and joblessness, crime victimization and public safety, public satisfaction with major government officials and institutions, and the directional trends in the people’s quality of life. Some of them are measured once a year, for instance, the people’s general satisfaction with life, their expectation of happiness for a coming holiday, their optimism for a new year, and their happiness in love life.

It is essential that the surveys be repeated over time, since the overarching objective is to learn, from the data collected, how to improve the conditions of the people compared to the past, with an eye for proceeding efficiently into the future. These data are addressed to the public as a whole, to anyone and everyone. They are not meant to benefit the current administration or any political or social group in particular. They are not collected to provide “content” for the mass media. The print and broadcast media are only the traditional means of transmitting the data to as wide an audience as possible.

It is proper to compare the current performance rating of any particular public official with the rating of the same official in the past, or with the rating of a past occupant of the same position. It is proper to compare the performance of one administration with that of a previous administration. If the data are sourced from public opinion, then they measure popularity indeed; but that is normal since our chosen system of governance is democratic. Subjective data from surveys can be validated as reflecting the people’s subjectivity, not the surveyor’s subjectivity.

To me, comparing the Philippines with other countries is interesting but not a research priority. It so happens that we are relatively more advanced in surveys of well-being—SWS is the oldest (since 1991) Asian member of the International Social Survey Program. Let us not get engrossed with envy of our neighbors, as though a gap between our conditions and theirs is an indicator of Filipino suffering. Or, as though whatever advantage we may have over them is a justification for bragging. Advancing human well-being is not an international sport. Let us just see how our neighbors have advanced themselves and try to do the same.