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

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 Tuesday, 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.