Gov’t gets low marks in urgent programs

MANILA, Philippines - Fewer Filipinos are satisfied with the way the Aquino administration is handling major concerns affecting the people, including increasing pay of workers and reducing poverty, a recent Pulse Asia survey revealed.

Pulse Asia’s Ulat ng Bayan survey, conducted from Sept. 8 to 15, found only 28 percent of Filipinos approve of the government’s efforts to increase the pay of workers, down from 36 percent in June. The number of dissatisfied Filipinos, meanwhile, rose from 30 percent to 36.

The number of Filipinos who approve of the administration’s efforts to control the inflation rate dropped by four points to 22 percent.

About one in two Filipinos considered inflation and workers’ pay as the most urgent national concerns at 50 percent and 49 percent, respectively, according to Pulse Asia.

On the administration’s efforts to reduce poverty, only 26 percent said they were satisfied, down from 32 percent three months earlier.

The administration obtained only one majority approval rating – for fighting criminality at 53 percent, which was lower than the 54 recorded in June.

Pulse Asia said appreciation is the plurality sentiment toward the government’s initiatives to defend the country’s territorial integrity against foreigners (48 percent from 47 percent), promote peace (46 percent from 50 percent), enforce the rule of law (43 percent from 44 percent), and fight corruption in government (43 percent from 42 percent).

The government’s scores on the following issues also dropped in September: stopping the destruction and abuse of the environment (from 46 percent to 42 percent); controlling fast population growth (from 39 percent to 35 percent); and creating more jobs (from 37 percent to 34 percent).

Higher expectations

Malacañang, for its part, said people will always expect more from the government when it comes to gut-level issues, especially when there is economic growth being touted but is taking time to be inclusive.

Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said yesterday in a press briefing that there was a constellation of issues that must be considered and that the administration’s economic team had been focused on lowering inflation, which decreased from a high of 4.9 percent to 4.4 percent as of latest report.

He said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas was continuously monitoring the inflation rate and has all the tools of monetary policy to regulate it, including total liquidity in the banking system and other indicators.

“They are the ones in the position to directly thwart threats of inflation and the economic management team as well as the Bangko Sentral are working together on this,” Coloma said.

He said the National Price Coordinating Council was also monitoring, tracking and regulating the price of important food and basic commodities to ensure that the Filipinos’ purchasing power would not be diminished.

Coloma added they were aware of the Filipinos’ concern on wages, especially those in the private sector.

But he said the private sector was guided by market forces and that the strong economy should encourage employers to share more with their workers.

“Theoretically, the private companies should be producing more revenues and more substantial cash flows that would enable them to share a greater portion of what they are earning with their workers through salary increases or salary adjustments. That is the opportunity being seen,” he said.

“While we are providing policy tools that make it possible for the economy to grow on a more dynamic and sustained basis, this is what would give opportunities for workers in the private sector to aspire for higher levels of salaries and earnings,” he added.

Fight vs corruption

Amid the decline in the level of concern for the need to fight corruption in government, the survey showed nearly half of Filipinos or 48 percent are hopeful that corruption in the use of public funds can still be successfully addressed.

This opinion is shared by big pluralities to small majorities across geographic areas and socio-economic classes (45 percent to 54 percent and 47 percent to 54 percent, respectively).

An exception is Mindanao, where 42 percent agree with this view while 34 percent are ambivalent on the matter.

“Between June and September 2014, the only significant movement in the national administration’s performance ratings on these selected issues is the decline in the level of approval for its efforts to increase the pay of workers (-8 percentage points),” Pulse Asia said.

It said all other changes – including the six-percentage point decline in the approval and the six-percentage point increase in disapproval for the administration’s anti-poverty initiatives, as well as the six-percentage point rise in disapproval for its work in the area of increasing workers’ pay – are marginal in nature.

The survey used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults 18 years old and above.

It has plus or minus three percentage points error margin at the 95 percent confidence level. – With Aurea Calica