SWS: 3 in 5 Filipinos back SC go-ahead on Poe presidential bid
Senator Grace Poe. PHOTO BY JAY MORALES
Three in five Filipinos or about 66 percent said that they agree with the Supreme Court’s ruling which cleared the way for Senator Grace Poe to run for president, a new Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey done through smartphones said.
READ: Debate continues to rage on SC ruling on Poe
The survey, which was commissioned by TV5, also showed that 15 percent of respondents opposed the high court’s ruling. About 16 percent said that they were undecided while four percent said that they “don’t know.”
‘Pioneering’ poll
SWS said that the “Bilang Pilipino-SWS Mobile Survey” is a “pioneering” poll as the respondents were given free smartphones with Internet access so that they can answer the survey questions sent to them every day.
“A few days earlier, on March 8-11, SWS had done face-to-face interviews of 1,200 validated voters, drawn nationwide by means of standard SWS random sampling procedures. These voters were invited, and had then agreed, to be members of a panel of respondents to receive and reply to a few survey questions each day using mobile phones provided to them for free by Starmobile.”
“There is no cost to them to receive and reply to the questions, due to zero-rated Internet access provided for the survey and selected websites by Smart Communications,” the SWS said about the poll’s methodology.
Respondents may keep the mobile phones given to them once the project ends in May.
Of the total 1,200 original respondents invited to participate, only 848 or 71 respondents responded to the maiden March 14 mobile survey.
The breakdown of participants per geographic area is as follows: 218 in Metro Manila, 207 in Balance Luzon, 228 in Visayas and 195 in Mindanao. The survey has sampling error margins of ±3 percent for national percentages, ± 6 percent in the Visayas, and ± 7 percent in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon and Mindanao.
Net agreement
The survey also found that net agreement on the SC decision favoring Poe was “very strong” in Visayas at +56 (68 percent agree, 12 percent disagree) and Balance Luzon at +54 (68 percent agree, 14 percent disagree).
READ: Ruling on Poe amended Constitution, says justice
Meanwhile, the decision got “strong” agreement from respondents coming from Metro Manila at +46 (62 percent agree, 17 percent disagree) and Mindanao at +42 (61 percent agree, 18 percent disagree).
More men supported the ruling in Poe than women. Net agreement was “very strong” among men at +55 (70 percent agree, 15 percent disagree while “strong” among women at +47 (62 percent agree, 15 percent disagree).
Each day at 8 a.m., respondents will receive two to three questions which they will answer through their smartphones. They can submit their answers until 12 noon.
Only the invited respondents can answer the questions. CDG
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