THE PEOPLE'S SONA
After two years in office, President Aquino
gets an average grade of “3” from the public

By the StratPOLLS Staff
Exclusive to the Business Mirror

As Pres. Benigno Aquino enters the third year of his presidency, almost at the halfway mark, he leaves behind two years that started with the hostage-taking drama and subsequent death of eight Chinese tourists at the Luneta in 2010 and now to a presidency facing-off with the Chinese government over disputed areas in the West Philippine Sea.

On a scale of 1 to 5, with one as the lowest and 5 as the highest possible grade, President Aquino earned an average grade of 3 on the fourteen major concerns that covered “fight against corruption in government” to “promotion of foreign investments in the country.”

StratPOLLS appliedthe Scale of 1 to 5 method as the standard of measurement innumerical values with the number 1 representing respondents with “No comment,” the number 2 representing respondents who opined that Mr. Aquino “Has not done anything,” the number 3 representing the opinion “Seems to be doing something,” the number 4 representing “Has done little,” and the number 5 representing “Has done much.”

The average public opinion shows that Mr. Aquino “Seems to be doing something” on all the fourteen major concerns earning an average grade of 37 percent.

The table below shows how he fared on the fourteen major concerns plus public opinion on his apparent lack of a defined plan for settling down in marriage

Public satisfaction is high on the subjects “Fight against corruption in government” where he earned 14 percent on the maximum scale of 5, “Handling of territorial dispute with China over Panatag Shoal” (18%) and “Promotion of foreign investments in the country” (17%).

Conversely, and on the average, Aquino “has not done anything” on “Protection of the environment” (35%), “Implementation of the Agrarian Reform Law” (31%), “Promotion of agricultural production/farmers’ welfare” (31%), “Rising costs of goods and services” (29%), among many others.

As an aside 27 percent of those polled opined that Aquino “Has not done anything” about settling down and getting married.”

The opinions were drawn through phone interviews from 300 respondents which were picked at random but proportionately in Quezon City, Caloocan City, Manila, Pasig and Pasay. Phone interview is the method of choice by Gallup Polls and the other top polling firms in the USA where 70 percent of the respondents are land line users while 30 percent are mobile phone users. The pre-qualified respondents in the StratPOLLS exercise were among the 2,000 stored in its data bank. The poll has a margin of error of 3.5 percent plus or minus.