91% of Filipinos agree with voluntary wearing of face masks: SWS

FILE: People still wearing face masks while walking in the pedestrian lane along the intersection of Taft Avenue and Pedro Gil Street in Manila City on Wednesday (Sept. 14, 2022). (PNA photo by Alfred Frias)

MANILA – The majority, or 91 percent, of adult Filipinos agree with the voluntary wearing of face masks, a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed.

The survey, conducted on Dec. 10-14, 2022 but released only on ______day, noted that 64 percent of the respondents said they “strongly approve” of Executive Order (EO) 7 (series of 2022), allowing the voluntary wearing of face masks in indoor and outdoor settings, while 27 percent said they “somewhat approve” of the EO.

Meanwhile, only 3 percent of adult Filipinos “somewhat disapprove” of wearing masks voluntarily, 1 percent “strongly disapprove,” and 4 percent were undecided.

The non-commissioned survey also showed that more than half, or about 54 percent, of the respondents said they would always use a face mask when leaving the house.

Twenty-two percent of Filipinos said they wear a face mask outside “most of the time,” 15 percent said “sometimes,” 8 percent said “rarely,” and 1 percent never wore it.

The same survey showed that 91 percent of Filipino household heads agree with the voluntary wearing of face masks for children in face-to-face classes, and only 5 percent expressed disagreement.

Four out of 5 households with children attending face-to-face classes will always make their child wear a face mask when going to school, the pollster said.

The SWS said 11 percent of Filipino household heads would make their child wear a face mask when attending face-to-face classes “most of the time”, 5 percent said “sometimes”, 3 percent said “rarely” and 0.5 percent said “never.”

The survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 1,200 adult respondents (18 years old and above) nationwide. It had a sampling error margin of ± 2.8 percent.