Most Filipinos found that the government did not do enough to help those who lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest survey from the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.
According to the September SWS poll, only 44 percent found the government’s actions to provide help to the jobless adequate. Forty-six percent found the efforts to be inadequate while 9 percent were undecided.
This gave the government a net adequacy score of -2 in terms of joblessness assistance, the SWS said.
By area, net adequacy in helping the unemployed was lowest in Metro Manila (-15), followed by Balance Luzon (-2), Mindanao (-1), and the Visayas (+4),” the SWS said.
The government scored higher marks for its efforts to inform the public on how to counter COVID-19, with 71 percent saying these were adequate, and only 22 percent saying they were not. Six percent were undecided, yielding a net adequacy score of +49 (percentage adequate minus percentage inadequate).
By area, net adequacy is higher in Mindanao (+52) and the Visayas (+51) than in Balance Luzon (+47) and Metro Manila (+45), it added.
Some 67 percent found the government's efforts to ensure extensive contract tracing to be adequate, while 23 percent said they were inadequate. Nine percent were undecided, yielding a net adequacy score of +43 for contact tracing.
A little more than half or 54 percent found the government's actions to ensure affordable COVID-19 testing to be adequate, while a third or 33 percent said they were inadequate. Eleven percent were undecided, yielding a net adequacy score of +21 for affordable testing.
The SWS survey was taken from Sept. 17 to 20 using mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviews of 1,249 adult Filipinos.
It has a sampling error margin of ±3% for national percentages, ±6% for Metro Manila, ±5% for Balance Luzon, ±6% for the Visayas, and ±6% for Mindanao.
Last week, a Pulse Asia survey suggested eight out of 10 Filipinos approved of the Duterte administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the government to clamp a lockdown on March 17.
The Sept. 14 to 20 poll found that 84 percent of Filipinos had a "positive opinion about the work done by the Duterte administration to control the spread of the novel coronavirus."
Some 10 percent of the respondents were neutral on the government's actions in reining in the pandemic while 6 percent disapproved of its performance, according to the poll results.
The survey coincided with a report that President Rodrigo Duterte garnered a 91-percent approval rating in the middle of the unprecedented crisis.
As the pandemic brought economic activities to a standstill, the Philippine government provided cash aid to low-income families, repatriated migrant workers and businesses to fend off the impact of the crisis, which got a stamp of approval from Filipinos.