A recent survey released by Washington-based polling firm Pew Research Center revealed that a majority of Filipinos are satisfied with how democracy works in the Philippines.
The study, which measured satisfaction with the performance of democracy in different parts of the globe, was released on April 29 and showed that across the 27 countries polled, 51 percent are dissatisfied with how democracy is working in their country, while 45 percent are satisfied.
Pew noted that Asia-Pacific nations tend to be satisfied with the state of their democracy — including the Philippines with 69 percent of Filipinos saying they are satisfied, while 31 percent admitting they are not. Japan seems to be the only exception as results showed 56 percent of Japanese claiming they are dissatisfied.
In Europe, large majorities in Italy, Spain and Greece are dissatisfied. Meanwhile, in the sub-Saharan African and Latin American countries surveyed, around half or more answered they were discontent with the democracy in their countries.
“Dissatisfaction with democracy is higher in emerging than advanced economies,” the study revealed.
It also showed the distinctions in democratic dissatisfaction between 2017 and 2018, with the Philippines remaining the same with 31 percent. Apart from our country, other nations who did not experience significant change were Greece, Kenya, Indonesia, Italy, Nigeria, Hungary, Poland, Australia and Israel.
The survey was conducted using telephone and face-to-face interviews during the the fourth quarter of 2018. Pew stated that the poll results were based on national samples, unless otherwise noted.
1,181 adult respondents were surveyed in the Philippines from May 28 to July 7, 2018.
“For results based on the full sample in a given country, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus the margin of error. The margin of error is larger for results based on subsamples in the survey,” Pew said.
