Leni Robredo’s trek to the vice president position : part 1

thank you to blogwatch.ph (@blogwatchdotph) for inviting us to sit in during the session with LP’s vice presidentiable Leni Robredo.

there is something to be said about Leni Robredo, a vice presidentiable who gives her time to a group of bloggers and netizens to talk about issues and allow them to know who she is as a candidate and as a person.

and Leni Robredo needs the exposure. last october 19, 2015, we wrote in this blog (tittle : 2 things Leni Robredo should do to win) that to win, she needs to address her low awareness on a national level. Robredo is known in Naga and to a certain degree in Metro Manila. but with her experience and work concentrated on a local level at Naga, she is hardly known nationally specially when compared to her competitors in the vice-presidential race who are all nationally elected senators. they all have a national political base and are known on a national level.

this meeting with the blogwatch.ph will help address the need we identified in October 2015.

excerpts:

survey results notwithstanding, Robredo has 2 huge but very basic marketing things that she needs to do to win:

1. address low awareness on a national level – robredo may be known in here hometown and to some degree in Metro Manila but she is hardly known in the rest of the country. that is a key issue as the position she is running for is national in scope, she needs the rest of the country to know who she is.
2. what is the Leni Robredo brand equity or brand positioning? together with the issue of low awareness, Robredo’s other big problem and this can be much bigger than the first is nobody knows what she stands for. what is her brand equity or brand positioning of Robredo?

read: https://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/2-things-leni-robredo-should-do-to-win/

since October, Robredo has gone to other parts of the country to get to know the people and to allow the people to know her. she has aired some advertising which based on the monitoring was about P91M in 2015 and places her 11th highest ad spender among the national candidates and 3rd highest among vice-presidentiables. the ad spending may be not much, but it is a move in the right direction.

what is interesting is that during the blogwatch.ph discussion, she admitted she was surprised by the amount of money spent on her TV ads. she said she did not have money to spend for the ads and the money for sure did not come from her. her party, the LP had spent for the ads. according to her, senator bam aquino is the one managing her campaign and would know the details of the ad spending.

honestly, we do not remember what ad she aired during that time. but i remember it was not a remarkable ad. it was forgettable and too run of the mill.

in a scenario where there is very low brand awareness, ads like the one she aired, boring it may be, is a good thing. the ad for sure will add awareness and build some brand equity for her.

however, for whatever brand equity she has gotten from the ads, it is on shaky grounds as a non-remarkable ad that builds an equity means the equity is vulnerable to erosion specially when the other vice presidential candidates start airing their own ads during the campaign  period which started just a few days ago.

the survey results recently released show that Robredo’s campaign is doing very well. it also supports the points we raised on what Robredo needs to win the election – increase awareness and a brand equity definition.

a few days ago, we tweeted that Robredo should aim to get more interviews to get media exposure, for more people to hear and see her. in the times that we have seen her during interviews, we were continually and exponentially  impressed by her. we thought more voters getting this experience, the more she gains supporters.

the survey results are very good for Robredo. she was on a surge in the latest mid-December poll from SWS. from a very low 7% in September 2014, she gained a +16% points in December 2015, to 19% from 3%. more importantly her ranking jumped to a tie at 2nd with Marcos coming from 5th in September.

the surge in the surveys may have been driven  by the announcement of her candidacy and the endorsement from president Noynoy Aquino and the LP presidentiable Mar Roxas and the media attention given to her after the announcement. in other words, Robredo generated awareness and started to define her brand equity.

her ratings in the survey has defined her as competitive even when faced with incumbent senators who already have a national standing.

the question is can she sustain this upward trajectory in the coming weeks?

~~~ more to follow ~~~

 

 

 

 

 

Binayfication strategy is not working – change or explode in flames on the way down

Binayfication is the strategy employed by VP Binay and the rest of the family on the current allegations and charges hounding them individually and collectively as a family. Binayfication is about ignoring and not answering the allegations and charges of corruption being revealed and multiplying at the committee hearings led by Senators Cayetano, Pimentel and Trillanes. It is about ignoring and not answering them and instead introducing new issues and points that are totally unrelated to the charges and allegations with the intent of diverting the attention of the people.

these survey results from both Pulse Asia and SWS says it all, quite emphatically how Binayfication has failed as a strategy:

sources : http://www.sws.org.ph/ and http://pulseasia.ph/

all the survey results, Pulse Asia’s trust and performance ratings and SWS satisfaction ratings of jojo binay as a vice president has plummeted in September 2014 from previous periods of June and March 2014. the changes from September to June are all dramatic and statistically significant – the drops are -15% points. comparing the September numbers to one more quarter before that, from March 2014, the drops are even more devastating, they increase from a middle double-digit number to now -20% in most cases.

not only that, the drops as the Pulse Asia survey shows are across the board, across all regions and across all socio-eco classes. in other words, the vote of disapproval is from everyone in all places in the country. that is massive decline in any survey, political or even in marketing.

that tells us whatever it is the Binay camp are doing, they are not working and is not helping the cause of VP Binay for his 2016 presidential aspirations. in marketing, actions and strategies are measured and judged by numbers, by results. the actual business numbers and results equivocally tell us whether they are working or not. numbers that go up simply say they are working and numbers that are down says they are not working. whatever the numbers are, you base your next step on those. good numbers says continue whatever you are doing while bad numbers says stop whatever you are doing and change course.

for the past weeks, all that the Binay camp have been doing is Binayfication. the numbers are out and what they are saying is that Binayfication is not working . the smart strategist will make a move to change strategies. but that does not seem to be what they will do. so far, all they have been doing is the same thing. doing the same thing will give the same results. if these initial results is the beginning of a trend, Binay is set to lose the 2016 election.

—

credit goes to sargo for the term “Binayfication”. it is being used with permission. 

 

Pulse Asia March 2014 presidentiables survey : don’t panic, it’s only 2014

one fine day at the end of april 2014, we were greeted with headlines on print and broadcast media similar to what rappler.com had – vp jejomar binay an announced candidate for the 2016 presidential election tops all of them with a whopping 40% of the survey answers as the candidate the respondents will vote if the election was held today.

that is like a just little less than 2 years till the may 2016 elections. a long way off till election time.

and that is the reason why the other presidentiables (ahem, mar roxas and alan peter cayetano) should not panic. the standings of the candidates will change dramatically as we approach may 2016. that is guaranteed – dramatic and drastic.

people’s sentiments change over time and so does the behavior of the presidentiables, not to mention the campaign programs and ads the candidates will be releasing before and during the campaign period.  more importantly, studies show that the farther from election time, the more fickle voters are. it says voters get to firm up their choices the nearer election time goes. many start firming up their choices just 1 to 2 weeks before the election. in fact for the swing votes, many firm up their choices just 1 or 2 days before election time.

these type of development can be seen in previous elections where we can see the dramatic changes in the survey standings of the presidentiables.

for posterity, we will be posting here the data tables of the this pulse asia march 2014 presidentiables survey and the other survey results for vice presidentiable and senatoriables. the charts have been picked up from rappler.com (read here : http://www.rappler.com/nation/56725-binay-runaway-winner-pulse-asia-poll)

we were surprised by the strong showing, on third, of senator miriam defensor santiago. her strong stance against the PDAF scam has put her on that spot.

grace poe has come out as second here mainly due to her strong showing in the senate hearings. she has come out as very intelligent and poised in these hearings.

vp jejomar binay coming out as top is no surprise. his position as VP has helped him a lot to be in that spot.

mar roxas although he has not declared he will run for president, but we all know he will run, came in very low at 5th with just 6% (versus binay’s 40%). perhaps his performance during the yolanda storm may have affected him here.

chiz escudero seem to be a perennial favorite for the vice presidential slot. maybe it is time for him to have a go at it.

we are shocked that senator tito sotto is among the top 3 specially when taking at look at where manny pacquaio is. sotto is among the top 3 while pacquaio is way below on the top 18. it is hard to reconcile how sotto a plagiarist can be on top and beat out pacquiao who is a national hero for many pinoys. makes us wonder that perhaps pacquaio is not as favored as we think or more importantly as what he thinks he is.

how should the candidates proceed from this?

• take the results with a mountain of salt
• need to monitor developments
• candidates and planners should draw some conclusions from the survey results
• common denominators should be pulled out
• from these conclusions, they should draw out a research plan
• conduct research based on these results

we think it is important for the candidates to draw learnings from thes results and draw up medium to long-term action plans.

don’t take SWS yolanda survey on aquino’s “satisfaction performance” seriously – defective design

i was very surprised when media carried this news on the latest SWS survey results that said super typhoon yolanda victims themselves gave president aquino a “very good” performance satisfaction rating.

SWS: PNoy gets ‘very good’ satisfaction ratings from Yolanda victims

Although he has received criticism from some parties for his administration’s response to super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), President Benigno Aquino III got “very good” satisfaction marks from victims of the typhoon, according to a survey by Social Weather Stations.

SWS said this was the finding of its survey last Dec. 11 to 16, where Yolanda victims – which comprised 13 percent of Filipino families – gave Aquino a “very good” +54 net satisfaction rating.

“The December 2013 survey found higher satisfaction ratings for President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III among victims of Yolanda compared to those who were not victimized by the super typhoon,” the survey said.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/345123/news/nation/sws-pnoy-gets-very-good-satisfaction-ratings-from-yolanda-victims\

essentially the same story was reported by other media outlets. reading the news stories alone, i immediately had a different reaction to the survey results which i tweeted (@wawam). will talk about this next. 

of course malacanang jumped on the “good news”.

Palace ecstatic over Aquino’s ‘very good’ satisfaction rating

MANILA, Philippines— Malacañang  gave itself a pat on the back on Thursday after the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed that Super Typhoon “Yolanda” victims were satisfied with the performance of President Benigno Aquino III during and after its devastation.

“It is gratifying that those who suffered greatly appreciate what their President and their government have done to ease their pain and alleviate their plight despite the shortcomings and challenges still being hurdled,” Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said Thursday in a press briefing.

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/568259/palace-ecstatic-over-aquino-very-good-satisfaction-rating#ixzz2rTD2g5nU
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

just based on the survey results published in media, i thought something was not right about the survey which i tweeted:

1. the respondent base for yolanda victims appeared to have been just extrapolated, not a stand alone respondent base. it appeared to me SWS re-looked at the survey results and counted the results of those who live in the yolanda areas and tabulated these results. i felt SWS did not actually conduct a separate survey to ask the respondents these questions but just looked at the survey results of an already finished survey
2.  coming from the above, i thought the question asked was a general “performance satisfaction” of president  aquino and not specific to aquino’s performance on the yolanda relief efforts. it is very possible that respondents will give very different answers to these questions.

last january 22, SWS posted the specifics of the survey results : i was both right and wrong on the point #1 and was right on point #2. conclusion remains – let us not take these results seriously, the results are what we call in research “soft results”.

i was wrong on point #1 because SWS did not just extrapolate the answers of those living in the yolanda areas what they did was they actually asked the respondents if they were affected by the yolanda.

there could have been 2 ways to extrapolate – 1 is by just applying the % of  respondents living in the yolanda areas to the total results of the total visayas results (a very wrong thing to do) or look at the respondent answer sheets and count the answers of those declaring their address to be in yolanda areas. none of these were done. what they did was they asked a direct question.

i was right in the sense that SWS did not conduct a separate and stand alone survey among those living in the yolanda areas. this should have been the cleanest way to do it. you get an actual sample size in the areas themselves.

since SWS just asked the question among respondents if they were affected by yolanda, this brings up two more questions – is the sample size of 13% enough to read the results and how accurate is it to say that these respondents actually “lived in yolanda areas” when these were just “claimed”.

on the point #2, i was proven right.

the question was a generic performance satisfaction question – “satisfied or dissatisfied in performance as president of the philippines”  and not specific to the performance of the president on post yolanda relief efforts.

the specific “performance on yolanda efforts” can get a very different answer from the generic “performance as president of the philippines”. the first zeroes in on yolanda while the second one includes everything about the presidency and the country in general.

for example, if we ask our spouse, we could be a “very good husband/wife”  as a whole but a “very poor sex partner” in a specific component of marriage.

we do not know why SWS released these survey results and how media plus malacanang take these results when the survey design is critically flawed.

both SWS and Pulse Asia surveys hit 100% match with official senatoriables 2013 election Comelec results

there is no other way to describe it -both SWS and Pulse Asis senatoriables polls during the 2013 mid term election were impressive, both hit 100% in the list of senatoriables they had on their surveys compared to the top 12 on the final & official results from the Comelec.

SWS conducted their last survey for the senatoriables election May 2 to 3 and got these results compared to the actual and final Comelec results:

• 12 out of 12 in the poll came out as top 12 in the Comelec tally, 100% success rate
• 3 senatoriables, Escudero, K Pimentel and Honasan came in at exactly the ranking on the survey and the Comelec tally, a 25% match.
• 5 senatoriables, Legarda, AP Cayetano, N Binay, B Aquino and Trillanes came within 1 to 2 places off in the survey versus the final Comelec tally, a 42% match.
• adding the two numbers, 8 out of 12 or 67% came within a match to 2 places on the survey versus the Comelec tally
• only 4, Poe, S Angara, Ejercito and C Villar was off by more than 2 places from the final tally

Pulse Asia conducted its last survey for the senatoriables election on may 10 to 11. because of the nature of reporting and computation done by Pulse Asia on their poll results which were all expressed on a range, 11 out of 12 senatoriables matched the placements of the senatoriables to that of the Comelec tally. only 1 senatoriable, C. Villar was off.

the range means the Pulse Asia poll results were  showing a lot of ties or statistically insignificant differences from senatoriable to another.

what does this all mean?

it means SWS and Pulse Asia election polls are highly reliable and an excellent gauge of people’s sentiments on elections. there can be no better result than a 100% match rate and specially with a high number of matches coming in less than 2 places off.

that means the vetting of respondents done by the pollsters are excellent and are precisely representative of the voting population. it also means the random sampling done by these two polling agencies are to the point. most importantly, the sample size of 1,200 to 1,500 are good enough to be able to capture sentiments of voters on a national scale.

the above points, specially on the sample size have been the most questioned by non-believers of surveys, SWS and Pulse Asia in particular. not that the haters are able to present statistical arguments against the pollsters, but these have been incessantly raised by them. we have always said, those who raise them are those who are not winning in the polls thus having a skewed agenda. the excellent match up results proves the counter argument correct.

last point on what this means – it will be wise for election candidates in the future to subscribe and pay attention to the SWS and Pulse Asia election polls.

twitter followers of 2013 Senatoriables – how many are real, how many are fake?

we came across an interesting website on twitter the other day (courtesy of @Simply_Clinton) – twitter audit (http://www.twitteraudit.com/). the website analyses a twitter account’s followers and determines what portion are “real” followers and what is “fake”.

we assume “real” followers are other twitter accounts with individual humans behind them that follow a twitter account. they are acquired over time who follows an account based on a match on interest, point of view, tweets that are simply interesting or where to get information from.

“fake” followers are bots (internet robots) who are added to the list of followers just to add numbers to the followers list. the thinking is that, the more followers have or the greater the number of followers, the more popular the twitter user/account is. we have all heard of a twitter following contest of some sort between the likes of justin bieber and lady gaga for example. that is the whole idea behind it.

we are guessing someone having a bigger number of followers will feel important or encourage others to follow the person.

apparently, there are internet services from whom you can buy twitter followers. social media practitioners apparently do this all the time for their clients. when you hire a social media practitioner, adding or padding your follower list is one of the things they do for you.

with this in mind, we ran some 2013 senatoriables twitter accounts to find out what is the ratio of “real” vs “fake” twitter followers they have on their accounts.

we do not know if these politicians actually “bought” followers and we are not even giving an opinion on it. maybe they are all “real” followers and that the twitteraudit.com is wrong or giving us bad data or they have a large number of twitter followers whose accounts have become dormant for a long time. these things happen. and we really do not know how accurate or reliable twitteraudit.com is.

take these with a grain  salt, decide on your own what they mean.

for good measure, we also put here our own (@wawam) twitter audit and other politicians who are active on twitter. looking at the other audit results will give you a better gauge of what the data all mean for the rest.

   

head to head comparison SWS vs Pulse Asia February 2013 Senatoriables Polls

the good news is that the country has two polling companies doing a great job of capturing the sentiments of voters – SWS (social weather station) and Pulse Asia. it also adds to it that they tend to conduct the polls at about the same time. with the respondent criteria about the same and survey timing very close to each other, comparing the two results is a very good thing to do.

surveys give the people a view, scientific and objective, of what others think about candidates and issues. it can help others shape or confirm their own views. in this complex world of ours, more information is always better.

for candidates and handlers of the candidates, it can be more than informational, it can be very instructive. they can use the results to re-shape, change directions or strengthen their winning strategies or fix and avoid their losing strategies.

but that is very much dependent on the skill sets of the candidates and their handlers on analyzing and understanding surveys. that is the first step.

the second and the more important step is formulating new strategies and plans based on the survey analysis and conclusions.

we are providing here a first step analysis of the  survey results. there are a few more steps on analysis that needs to be done and more steps at formulating action steps in strategy change and plans formulation. but those are for another day.

in the meantime….

data sources: Pulse Asia & SWS

• Pulse Asia : http://pulseasia.ph/
• SWS : http://www.sws.org.ph/

also read (click) :

• dramatic gains for aquino & poe, dramatic drops for trillanes, zubiri & enrile – pulse asia february 2013 senatoriables poll
• dramatic drops for UNA & dramatic increases for Team PNoy in february SWS sentatoriables survey

dramatic gains for aquino & poe, dramatic drops for trillanes, zubiri & enrile – pulse asia february 2013 senatoriables poll

not much has changed among the top 3 ranking senatoriables, legarda, escudero and cayetano alan peter from previous poll.

for this february 2013 pulse asia 2013 senatoriables survey, 15 senatoriables are competing for the top 12 position. in order of highest to lowest ranks as follows:

1. legarda (Team PNoy)
2. escudero (Team PNoy)
3. cayetano alan peter (Team PNoy)
4. villar, cynthia (Team PNoy) 
5. ejercito (UNA)
6. aquino, bam (Team PNoy)
7. binay (UNA)
8. poe (Team PNoy)
9. pimentel (Team PNoy)
10. honasan (UNA)
11. enrile, jack (UNA)
12. trillanes (Team PNoy)
13. angara (Team PNoy)
14. zubiri (UNA)
15. gordon (UNA)

6 senatoriables  are battling for the last 3 positions, the 10th to the 12th, senatoriables honasan, enrile, trillanes, angara, zubiri and gordon who are all tied.

at the bottom among the candidates of the two major coalition parties, UNA and Team PNoy, are mitos magsaysay and tingting cojuangco  both from UNA. their rankings have not changed from previous.

among the 15 candidates fighting for the top 12 spots, 9 are from Team PNoy and 6 are from UNA.

among the top 9, only 2 are from UNA (binay and ejercito) while the rest are from Team PNoy. among the 6 who are battling for the last 3 spots, 4 are from UNA and only 2 are from Team PNoy.

with those rankings, if elections were held today, Team PNoy has a chance of gaining 9 out of the 12 seats at best or 7 out of 12 at worst, a clear majority of the seats.

Team PNoy has generally done very well in this survey.

source : https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3b9qPFV1cRDNGJWVXpKN0ZhZU0/edit

dramatic increases in rank and rating were gained by aquino and poe, both by +9 places who are now tied at 4th place from previous survey at 13th place; and +11.8 percentage points and +11.2 percentage points, respectively.

3 senatoriables suffered dramatic losses in rank and rating, 1 from Team PNoy, trillanes and 2 from UNA, enrile and zubiri.  all three lost 5 places in the rankings although all three still came within the top 12.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the rich from NCR & urban areas abandons aquino, grossly dissatisfied with president’s performance – SWS survey

president noynoy aquino’s net satisfaction hit rock bottom since he took office in the latest SWS  presidential performance survey, going down to +42. while this is still on the “good” level as SWS categorizes it, the worry part is that it may be the start of a  perilous  dropping trend.

aquino is admittedly the country’s most popular president of the country when he won the election in a landslide  and his net satisfaction ratings starting off at a very high level. the contrast of his net satisfaction rating reaching an all time low came as a shock to malacanang that it has taken the silly step of asking SWS to explain the drop.

source : http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/261508/news/nation/malaca-wants-sws-to-explain-drop-in-pnoys-ratings

the biggest contributor to aquino’s over-all net satisfaction rating is the rich or the ABC socio-eco class abandoning aquino.   his net satisfaction ratings suffered a significant deterioration on all key indicators, with a  total net satisfaction drop of 37% points to +25% net satisfied from +62% in the most recent May 2012 poll from the previous March 2012 poll.

this total net satisfaction was pulled down by a significant deterioration of +25% points. that is about a one third drop among the ABC socio-eco class.  there was also a significant increase of ABC respondents dissatisfied  with aquino with an increase of +13% points. almost a doubling from previous poll from 16% dissatisfied to now 29% dissatisfied.

another contributor to the drop  in net satisfaction rating of aquino  is NCR, where it also showed a dramatic deterioration  of -34% points in net satisfaction,  almost as large as the drop among the ABC, to only +18% from the previous period of +52%.

there was a significant deterioration in number of people from the NCR who were satisfied in aquino’s performance from +72% to +48% a drop of -24% points. consequently the number of people dissatisfied in the performance of aquino from the NCR increased from 20% to 30% , a huge increase of +10% points. that is a huge 50% increase.

in this poll period, those from the urban areas also showed a big drop in net satisfaction in the performance of aquino to +35% points from +45% points from previous polling period. this shows a high -10% points drop. the  huge drop in net satisfaction among those living in urban areas was driven by a high drop in number of people who were satisfied with the performance of aquino with a -9% point decrease from previous period; to 59% from 68%. dissatisfaction ratings stayed about the same at 24% in this polling period from 23% of previous period.

in summary the group of pinoys most responsible for the drop in net satisfaction rating of president aquino are the rich who belong to the ABC soci-eco class who live in NCR and urban areas. it appears to us this group of pinoys have abandoned aquino.

this group of people are the educated and the more enlightened  about national issues and problems. it is interesting to note that this kind of dramatic drops did not occur in the rest of luzon, visayas, mindanao and other socio-eco classes including rural areas. the period was marked with almost weekly news of price increases in oil and transport fares.  these increases in prices may be added to the perception that the aquino administration has not been doing enough to help the economy.

 

satisfaction ratings do shift over time, and almost always they drop from its peak which usually is at the start when the president assumes office. gravity applies to these performance satisfaction ratings as they usually erode. people give the new president high ratings at the start as it comes from a just concluded election. as everyday problems and challenges of governance occur, people change their minds as they are able to gauge the president up close and over and beyond election promises which are almost always good things.

 the upside for president aquino is that the drop that his net satisfaction ratings  have suffered from the start of his office to period 8 of the polling time frame is not the worst among the four presidents before him.

aquino’s net satisfaction ratings drop  is just the third worst  with -18% points  following erap who is on top with -47% points and followed second by arroyo at – 20% points. in this comparison, to us the most telling for aquino is the closeness to arroyo’s drop in net satisfaction ratings. to be compared to arroyo is perhaps the worst that anyone can do for aquino.

erap’s massive drop in net satisfaction ratings after 8 polling periods is understandable as he was involved in an impeachment trial during the time of the survey while the drop in arroyo’s net satisfaction may be attributed to mostly disappointment in performance as president.

it is difficult to find comfort in these numbers for aquino. it may be just a fluke or this can be the start of a real strong downtrend net satisfaction rating for him. while the president is still on the positive side, getting a negative as arroyo had gotten during the last years of her term would be very disappointing.

source : rappler.com

in many ways, it is understandable that malacanang is anxious about these poll results.

the economy has done well during the polling period  in march 2012 as the government reported a very impressive +6.4% GDP growth rate for the first quarter of 2012, the second highest in asia next to china and one that surprised and exceeded expectations and forecasts.

add to that the stellar performance of the philippine stock market where it is the best performing in the world  which has broken historic highs 20 times since january this year alone.

there is difficulty in reconciling  how the rich who belong the ABC socio-eco class has abandoned aquino and whose ranks have shown dramatic shifts in satisfaction disfavoring the president when it is this group who invest in the stock market and who most likely benefited from the 6.4% GDP growth rate.

it makes you wonder what is it that has caused the rich to abandon aquino and give the president dramatic drops in satisfaction.  if the rich are not benefiting  from the GDP growth rate, who is? if it is not economic reasons that  is disappointing them, what is it about aquino and his job performance then?

aquino during the election campaign has kept harping on how well he listens to the people. in fact he even carried that election campaign positioning through his administration via the no wang-wang policy and the often quoted “kayo ang boss ko”  spin.  now is the time to actually do what he says he is good at – it is time for him to listen and listen hard to the people and find out why the rich from NCR and urban areas have abandoned aquino and has given him the worst net satisfaction rating of his administration.

~~ carlo p arvisu ~~
mindscape landmark 

noynoy aquino’s report card in 2011 as president – vote in the polls

mother of all polls on RH Bill – join the poll, let your voice be heard

aquino admin – hunger on the rise again

poverty is an endemic problem in the country and one that many previous administrations tried to fix but failed. that apparently includes the current aquino administration.

the aquino admin likes to say they are pro-poor and are dead serious in alleviating poverty. this survey results tell us the aquino admin better get their programs in place and running and hopefully effective.

but that will be asking too much. unfortunately the next quarterly survey of SWS on hunger will probably be even worst than this for the following reasons:

• toll fees are on the rise
• public transport fares (bus, jeepney, train, taxi) on the rise
• NFA rice has been increased
• bread prices on the rise
• gas prices are rising (always)
• power costs increasing
• jobs still hard to find
• US$ depreciating – remittances will get hit

the above will surely boost inflation and with not enough new jobs around, incomes will continue to be scarce and hunger will rise even more.

 

 

Hunger again rising

Yearend SWS survey estimates 3.4M families affected

HUNGER HAS GONE UP among Filipino families after declining for most of last year even as the number of households that consider themselves mahirap or poor basically stayed the same, a new Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey found.

A Nov. 27-30 SWS poll, the results of which were made exclusive to BusinessWorld, had 18.1% of the respondents — or an estimated 3.4 million families — claiming to have gone hungry in the last three months because they lacked anything to eat.

This was up from the 2010 low of 15.9% (3.0 million families) recorded last September and — given the 21.2% in March and 21.1% in June — was slightly below the 19.1% average for the year.

It was also four points over the 12-year average of 13.7%, the SWS noted, but still far from the record high of 24% hit in December 2009. The record low is 7.4%, hit in March 2004.

Some 9.2 million families or 49% of the respondents, meanwhile, considered themselves poor, barely changed from September’s 48%. Over a third — 36% or an estimated 6.7 million households — considered themselves food-poor, down from 38% previously.

Government officials blamed higher food prices in the last quarter of 2010 and noted the need to deliver on promises to reduce poverty.

The rise in overall hunger, the SWS said, was due to a two-point increase in moderate hunger — experiencing it “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months — to 15% or an estimated 2.8 million families. Those not stating their frequency of hunger are included in this category.

Severe hunger — experiencing it “often” or “always” — remained at 3.1% or 588,000 families.

Overall hunger rose in all areas except in the Visayas where it stayed at 15.3%. It increased by nearly four points in the Balance of Luzon to 18.3%, almost two points in Mindanao to 18% and a point in Metro Manila to 21.7%.

Moderate hunger was up in all geographical areas: to 16% from 13.3% in Mindanao, 14.7% from 12.3% in the Balance of Luzon, to 17.7% from 15.7% in Metro Manila and to 12.7% from 11.7% in the Visayas.

Severe hunger rose by over a point to 3.7% in the rest of Luzon but fell by an identical amount in Mindanao (2.0%) and the Visayas (2.7%). It fell by nearly a point in Metro Manila to 4.0%.

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