80% of Filipinos satisfied with democracy

Satisfaction with how democracy works in the country declined in June, nine months after it reached its highest level, according to a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

The majority (61 percent) of Filipinos also prefer a democratic over an authoritarian form of government, the survey says.

In face-to-face interviews, 80 percent of 1,200 adult respondents nationwide expressed satisfaction with the country’s democracy, down 6 percent from its highest level of 86 percent in September 2016.

The survey, conducted from June 23 to 30, also found that 61 percent preferred democracy over any other form of government, while nearly one in every five (19 percent) said that “under some circumstances, an authoritarian government can be preferable to a democratic one.”

Another fifth of the respondents said it did not matter whether the country had a democratic or a non-democratic regime.

People’s preference between democracy and authoritarianism is a different issue from the degree of satisfaction with how democracy works, and is probed by a separate question, according to SWS.

The independent survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

Satisfaction with the country’s democracy was also variously recorded at 70 percent in October 1992 and July 1998, and 68 percent in June 2010. SWS said the surveys followed the presidential elections of 1992, 1998 and 2010.

The result of the latest survey actually matched the 80 percent recorded in June 2013 following the May 2013 senatorial elections. Satisfaction with democracy was among its lowest, at 44 percent, in June shortly after that year’s presidential election.

SWS said the democracy rating had been over 60 percent since June 2010. In 31 surveys between October 1999 and June 2009, however, it went beyond 50 percent twice.

The term “satisfaction in the way democracy works” originated from the Eurobarometer surveys and is also used in Latin American and Asian barometer projects, according to SWS.

The results of the 2017 Eurobarometer survey of 28 European Union member states showed an average of 55 percent of Europeans were satisfied with the way democracy worked in the European Union. —INQUIRER RESEARCH