More Pinoys say economy worsened in 2011 — survey

Contrary to President Aquino’s claim that the country, under his watch, has changed for the better, more Filipinos believe the economy worsened in 2011, according to the latest Pulse Asia survey.

The survey, conducted last November 10 to 23, showed 38 percent of respondents saying the economy deteriorated over the past 12 months and only 18 percent said it improved. Forty-five percent of Filipinos said the economy remained unchanged during that period.

“Between October 2010 and November 2011, the percentage of Filipinos saying the economy is better now declined by 12 percentage points while the percentage of those who observed a deterioration in the Philippine economy increased by 22 percentage points,” Pulse Asia, in a statement, noted.

It added that big pluralities to small majorities (46 to 52 percent) in Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, the Visayas and Class E note the absence of any change — positive or negative — in the state of the economy over the past year.

But in Mindanao, Pulse Asia said, the majority sentiment is that the state of the national economy is worse now than a year ago (57 percent). Almost the same

percentages of those in Classes ABC and D either share this view (38 percent) or believe that the state of the national economy remained unchanged over the previous 12 months (43 versus 47 percent).

“Among those who said Philippine economy is in a worse state now than a year ago, 66 percent were strongly affected by this deterioration, 31 percent were somehow affected and only 3 percent did not feel the impact of the worsening economic situation in the country. Majority across geographic areas (56 to 74 percent) and socio-economic groupings (55 to 72 percent) claim to be strongly affected by the economic deterioration that they say took place in the country over the past year,” it stressed.

Pulse Asia said most of those who feel that the economy is in a better shape now say they “somehow felt the impact of this growth on their own lives” (60 percent).

This sentiment is shared by majorities in all geographic areas (51 to 71 percent) and Classes D and E (56 to 63 percent). In the best-off Class ABC, 44 percent were either strongly or somewhat affected by the perceived improvement in the Philippine economy in the last 12 months, the survey said.

At the national level, 25 percent of those saying the economy grew last year were strongly affected by this growth while 15 percent were not affected at all, it added.

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

It adopted a ± 3 percent error margin at the 95-percent confidence level.

Reacting to the Pulse Asia survey, Malacañang yesterday said it has started instituting more economic “reforms” that would see the number of unsatisfied Filipinos decrease.

According to deputy presidential spokesman Abigail Valte, the Aquino administration has “started hitting the ground” as early as last quarter of last year.

“Well, as surveys go, it’s always a snapshot of the sentiment of the people surveyed at that particular period in time. We would also like to see those numbers go down which is why we are, we’ve hit the ground running for 2012. We started in the last quarter of 2011, hoping to see those numbers decrease in particular.”

When asked to comment on the real status of the economy, Valte said: “We can’t really say because those are sentiments of the people and as sentiments, of course, you always have to consider subjectivity.” –Fernan J. Angeles, Daily Tribune