Supreme Court ratings improve

Speaker Jose de Venecia's attempts to vilify the Supreme Court after it's decision in Lambino was a desperate attempt to pressure the Court to reverse itself. The Speaker has been claiming, without any proof, that there is a clamor for constitutional change in the Philippines. In previous posts, I showed how he presented the Supreme Court as stumbling block to economic progress because it refused to allow the amendment of the Constitution through a “people’s initiative.” Contrary to de Venecia’s claims, there is no evidence that the Court's reputation has suffered because of Lambino. If anything, recent surveys show that the Court's reputation is improving.

Recently, the Supreme Court announced that the Makati Business Club recognized the court (Katrina M. Martinez, MBC Survey: SC is 3rd Best-Performing Gov’t Agency, March 16, 2007) as the third-best performing of 37 government offices, institutions, and basic services surveyed in 2006. This is no small feat for the Court; it moved up five notches from 8th place after obtaining a net performance satisfaction rating of 74.2. The Court followed the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Department of Finance which placed 1st and 2nd in the survey with net performance ratings of 87.2 and 85.5, respectively.

The Court also ranked 4th among the agencies which obtained the biggest increase in net satisfaction ratings - almost three times its net rating the previous year.

The MBC's Executive Outlook Survey is conducted by the MBC which measures the opinion and the confidence level of the business sector in economic, corporate, and government performance. The Report is found posted at the MBC's website.

The Social Weather Station's latest report also showed the Supreme Court in a good light. In its First Quarter 2007 Social Weather Survey, the survey found that 44% of the respondents were satisfied and 28% were dissatisfied with the Supreme Court. This reflects a moderately good net rating of +16. The report also stated that the Supreme Court's net rating "was a fairly high +37 at the start of the Arroyo administration, but dropped to neutral in March 2005, and has been modestly positive since then."

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