Statistically Speaking v. 2.0

Response to COVID-19: SS2OS Respondents Most Satisfied with Business, Not So Happy with Individual Citizens!

Last April 22, we released the partial results of the second Statistically Speaking v.2.0 Online Survey (SS2OS-2020-02) which showed that the most favored option on the extension of the NCR lockdown is for two weeks. And on April 23, PRRD announced the extension of the NCR lockdown exactly for that long. Maybe the President heard you SS2OS followers! Thank you Mr. President!

We now release the complete results subject to the usual limitations[2] of an online survey.

Background information:

• the survey respondents[3] come from those reached online by Statistically Speaking v.2.0 (SSv.2.0).
• The SS2OS-2020-02 drew a total of 250 responses[4] over 5 days from 20-24 April 2020 .
• There were 3 main questions on

— the activities missed the most by the respondent during the Lenten season of 2020;

— the favored extension option on the NCR lockdown; and

— the respondent’s assessment of the response of government, of business, of the community, and of the citizens to COVID-19.

The profile of the SS2OS respondents for most of the demographic variables has essentially not changed from the first survey[5]. How did they respond to the three survey questions? For the interactive survey results, access the dashboard here.

Respondents’ Profile

• Close to 7 out of 10 respondents (67.2%) are female; 2.4 % come from the LGBTQ+ community.

GENDER

• More than 9 out of 10 respondents (93.6%) are below 65 years old, similar to the age profile of the population; 53.2 % are at least 18 but below 40 years old. There is a severe under representation of the Generation Z and those below 18 years old and an over representation of the millennials.

AGE GROUP

• Nine out of 10 have at least a 4-year college degree with a high 36.8% having at least masteral degrees.

EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

• The SS2OS-2020-01 respondents have income much much higher than the per capita poverty threshold of PhP 2,246.40 per month for 2020. Slightly more than 7 out of 10 respondents (70.8%) come from the PhP 20k-100k monthly income group. Unfortunately, Statistically Speaking v.2.0 does not have the resources to ensure adequate representation of the low-income groups in the sample[6]. We wish we did!

MONTHLY INCOME GROUP

• The bias towards residents of Luzon is more pronounced in the second survey: less than 2 out of 10 respondents (14.4%) reside outside Luzon. NCR is overrepresented comprising a share (30%) in the sample which is more than double its share in the population; AONCR, Visayas and particularly Mindanao are under represented in the sample with combined shares of 1 out of 10 respondents. This means we need to promote SS2OS to areas outside Luzon. Can the SSv.2.0 friends help please?

RESIDENCE

• As was in the first survey, only 4% of the respondents are not Christian; 82% are Roman Catholic. Thus, the Roman Catholic church is more than adequately represented in the SS2OS-2020-02 sample.

RELIGION

And now, Survey says:

Activities Missed the Most during the Lenten Season

• Overall and practically across all subgroups, it is the spiritually-oriented activities that was missed the most by respondents. The only exception[7] is among Christians who are not Roman Catholic, 45.71% of whom missed leisure/recreation/sports the most, compared to 34.29% who missed spiritual activities the most.

• However, considering that 96% of the respondents are Christians and 82% belong to the Roman Catholic church, I was expecting that a much bigger percentage of respondents would miss spiritually-oriented activities the most, and a lower percentage would miss leisure, instead of the actual 60.6% and 23.3%, respectively. Only 6.4% missed work the most.

Does this mean that in the pre-COVID 19 Lenten seasons, many Catholics were in fact going on holidays instead of into spiritual retreats? Or was this the result of the availability of on-line masses/church services and work from home options? Or that simply, the respondents knew they had to take social distancing seriously?

• By gender, as may have been expected, the proportion of those who missed spiritually-oriented activities the most is lower for men than for women, while the proportions of those who missed leisure/recreation/sports type of activities and work-related activities are higher among male respondents.
• By other categories, the proportion of those who missed spiritually-oriented activities the most is highest among those

— aged 40 or over but below 65

— with at least masteral degrees

— with monthly income over PhP 50,000 up to PhP 100,000

— residing in Visayas for Philippine residents (although with relatively fewer respondents) and

— who belong to the Roman Catholic church.

NCR Lockdown Extension

• As the partial results showed earlier, a surprisingly high percentage favor extension of some sort ranging from 2 weeks to more than 3 months (91.2%) and only 6.4% favored no extension while the rest gave Don’t Know/Not applicable answers.

• The most favored option is extension of the NCR lockdown beyond April 30, 2020 for up to two weeks with possible modification (37.6%) such as selective quarantine and selective business operations, followed by extension for more than 2 weeks up to 1 month, also with possible modification (32.0%).
• Next favored option is extension for more than 1 month up to 3 months (14.8%) then extension for longer than 3 months (6.8%), both with possible modification.
• The first two choices for the NCR lockdown extension, namely up to 2 weeks and from 2 weeks to 1 month are practically unanimous across all groups: by gender, by age group, by monthly income group, by educational attainment, by residence, and by religion. The first three choices are also practically unanimous but to a lesser degree.

And as already mentioned, the President’s decision agreed with the SS2OS respondents’ most favored option. Wise choice, don’t you think?

Assessing Responses by Government, Business, the Community and the Citizens to COVID-19

• A rating of either Very Effective or Effective is given by the most number of SS2OS-02 respondents to business (77.33%), followed by the community (70.85%), the government (70.73%) and the citizens (44.90%).

It is also worth noting that while Government was rated Very Ineffective by the most number of respondents, it is only by a small percentage (2.85%). And no one rated as Very Ineffective the response of either business or the community.

Further, a high 35.51% of the respondents gave a Don’t Know reply to what the citizens are doing, which could be an indication that many of us in fact are following COVID-19 protocols and are staying at home.

Subtracting the Very Ineffective and Ineffective from the sum of Very Effective and Effective, a net rating is obtained: +75.30% for business, +61.94% for the community, +56.10% for government, and 25.31% for the citizens. In other words, everybody got a net positive rating with an average net rating of +54.66% across the four institutional sectors! Makes that bottom ranking of the Philippines in the Nikkei Asian Review listing[8] really questionable as a metric to compare responses to COVID-19 by countries!

Overall, I would say that business, the community and the government got a passing grade. In our fight against COVID-19, we are eternally grateful of course to our frontliner heroes – the healthcare workers, the police and the military, security personnel, the volunteers, and others! But let us also congratulate the generous and compassionate members of our business community, the civic organizations, the church organizations and the city/municipal/barangay leaders in our community, and the national and provincial leadership as well as the dedicated staff of key agencies in government like the DSWD and DOH! Keep it up and we shall overcome!

Surely, we have heard, read, and seen how many individual citizens contributed more than their fair share in helping our people manage the crisis. I hope a compilation of such contributions will be made as testimony to the indomitability of the human spirit in the midst of a crisis! But the SS2OS followers definitely have noticed how the pasaway among us have been misbehaving! Come on guys, there is still time to shape up! Then maybe, the lockdown can with reason, be cut shorter?

• Higher net positive ratings are given consistently to the four institutions (government, business, the community, the individual citizens) by respondents who are older; also, generally by those who belong to the lower income groups.

In fact, the lowest income group gave a high net positive rating of 75% to government indicating satisfaction with the support being given under the various programs of government.

• On the other hand, lower net positive ratings are consistently given by those have higher educational attainment. They probably demand much higher quality of response?
• Men gave slightly higher net positive ratings than women to government and business but women gave higher net positive ratings than men to the community and to individual citizens.
• For business, the community, and the individual citizens, among the four island groups, Visayas gave the highest rating while Mindanao gave the lowest rating. For government, respondents from Visayas still gave the highest rating but Mindanao gave the second highest, although there are only 7 respondents from Mindanao and 18 respondents from Visayas.
• By religion, the rating essentially follows that given by members of the Roman Catholic church, who comprise 82% of the respondents.

So, dear readers, you favored a lockdown extension in NCR beyond April 30 overwhelmingly! And PRRD in fact, “obeyed” you, extending the lockdown for 2 weeks. Until May 15 then, let us continue to stay home and safe, and pray that this nightmare will soon be over! Then maybe, just maybe, after May 15, we can do whatever we have missed doing all these weeks?

[1] Romulo A. Virola is formerly with the Actuarial Research and Development Group of the GSIS, and a former Professorial Lecturer in the Graduate Programs of the Statistical Center/School of Statistics and the Department of Mathematics (now the Institute of Mathematics) of the University of the Philippines . He retired in 2012 as Secretary General of the then National Statistical Coordination Board of the Philippines or NSCB (now part of the Philippine Statistics Authority). He finished his BS (Mathematics) from UP, and MS (Actuarial Mathematics) and PhD (Statistics) from the University of Michigan, where he was a Fellow in its Sampling Program for Foreign Statisticians. He used to write/co-write the Statistically Speaking articles posted on the NSCB website from 2004 until his retirement. The author thanks his former colleagues in the National Statistical System (NSS) of the Philippines, Jay Mendoza of IOM, UN Migration Agency and some FB adviser-friends for the assistance and support in preparing this paper.

[2] The survey does not use a randomly drawn sample of respondents and no poststratification and weighting adjustments are applied. Thus, the results should not be interpreted as coming from a nationally-representative sample, much less a representative sample from any of the “subdomains”. Comparisons across subgroups are valid only for the sample.

As a private sector initiative, it did not pass thru the PSA Statistical Survey Review and Clearance System (SSRCS), one of many mechanisms started by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) for statistical coordination. Under the SSRCS, surveys conducted by or for the government pass review to ensure adherence to internationally recognized statistical standards and methodologies and to avoid duplication of efforts by the different agencies comprising the national statistical system.

We also do not ask for the name, address/email address, or tel. number of the respondent which could be useful in validating responses.

[3] Statistically Speaking v. 2.0 thanks all the respondents who participated in the survey and all the Statistically Speaking v. 2.0 FB friends and followers who encouraged their own FB friends to participate. Statistically Speaking v. 2.0 is also grateful to Google for the use of its online survey facility.

[4] The responses may have been influenced by the article that introduced the survey

[5] See the March 26, 2020 post on the results of SS2OS-01

[6] One SS2OS follower asked if the poor can be adequately represented in future surveys

[7] Considering only subgroups with at least 30 respondents

[8] See April 20, 2020, Statistically Speaking v.2.0