Asean what? SWS finds 45% of Pinoys ‘not much’ aware of it

About 45 percent of Filipinos are “not much” aware of what the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is, a nationwide Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey taken in the last quarter of 2017 revealed.

In a media release on Wednesday, the SWS disclosed that only 8 percent of Filipino adults were “aware” of what Asean is; 4 percent were “quite a bit” aware, and 45 percent were “not much” aware.

The remaining 20 percent said they were “not at all” aware of the Asean, the survey firm noted.

Despite this, the SWS found that 79 percent of Filipinos believe that the Philippines benefits from being an Asean member.

This consists of 15 percent who believe the country “greatly benefits” from being a member, 24 percent who said it “largely benefits,” 31 percent who said it “somewhat benefits,” and 9 percent who said it “benefits only a little.”

The remaining 3 percent said the Philippines “does not benefit” from being an Asean member, 2 percent said they “have never heard” of the Asean, and 17 percent said they had no answer.

The survey was conducted from Dec. 8 to 16, 2017, using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults, aged 18 years old and above, nationwide.

It has a margin of error of ±3 percent nationwide, ±4 percent for Luzon, and ±6 percent each for Metro Manila, Visayas and Mindanao, the SWS said.