NCR COVID-19 Survey 2nd Run: Approval of PRRD, Nat’l Gov’t response to COVID-19 rises to ~70%

MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte and the national government notched a slight increase in public approval of their response to the COVID-19 pandemic during the second run of the NCR COVID-19 Online Panel Survey conducted by political consultancy firm PUBLiCUS Asia, Inc. from April 13-18, 2020.

69.7% of the 1,000 Metro Manila residents aged 18-70 who participated in the survey said they approve of the manner in which Duterte and the national government are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. 15.3% of respondents disapprove of the government’s performance, while 15% said they neither approve nor disapprove.

These results reflect a 3-point increase in approval from the April 2-6, 2020 run of the survey, in which 66.6% of respondents said they approve of the Duterte administration’s response to COVID-19.

The Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) and the Department of Health also garnered majority approval for their respective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

59.7% of respondents approve of the IATF-EID’s performance. 26.6% neither approve nor disapprove, and the remaining 13.7% approve or strongly disapprove.

DOH notched a 51.3% approval rating among respondents. 27.6% neither approve nor disapprove of the DOH’s COVID-19 response, while 21.1% disapprove or strongly disapprove. These results indicate a slight 1.7% decrease in DOH approval compared to the April 2-6 survey.

However, sentiments of respondents were divided on the DSWD’s implementation of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP), with the largest proportion of respondents (36.7%) disapproving. Another 33.2% of respondents approve of the DSWD’s implementation of SAP, while 30.1% neither approve nor disapprove.

The NCR COVID-19 Online Panel Survey is an independent non-commissioned tracking survey designed by PUBLiCUS and VOX Opinion Research (VOX). The survey data was processed and analyzed by VOX, the in-house strategic research arm of PUBLiCUS.

The survey aims to gauge public opinion and perceptions on the following key indicators: Living Standards and Needs during the ECQ; National Government Performance; Local Government Performance; Existing/Proposed COVID-19 Policies.

The online fieldwork of the survey was conducted in partnership with Lightspeed Research/Kantar of Singapore. Lightspeed provided an online panel of 1,000 Metro Manila residents aged 18-70 from its pool of 100,000 Philippine panelists. The number of respondents per city was distributed proportionally based on official population data.

Lightspeed is now the Asia-Pacific headquarters of Kantar, a leading firm in the global data industry with a panel reach of 88 million respondents in 90 markets worldwide according to its website.

More information on the purposive sampling methodology and panel selection process of the survey can be found here.

Reference: Mr. Aureli C. Sinsuat, PUBLiCUS Executive Director
Email: acsinsuat@publicusltd.com