US spying on Philippine leaders OK with most Filipinos - study

From the Philippine Star (Sep 25): US spying on Philippine leaders OK with most Filipinos - study

Two of three Filipinos, or 64 percent, find it "acceptable" for the United States to monitor communications of their government leaders, a recent study showed.

Bruce Stokes, a director at US-based think tank Pew Research Center, revealed in his presentation, which was released over the weekend, that Filipinos, among other Asians, are the most tolerant of alleged US spying.

The study comes amid reports—mainly based on leaks from whistleblower and fugitive Edward Snowden—of activities of the US National Security Agency apparently tasked to gather communications of world leaders.

A Snowden leak had purportedly revealed that Vice President Jejomar Binay and Interior Secretary Manuel "Mar" Roxas had been victims of US surveillance. Another Snowden document claims the existence of a US-run program collecting Filipinos' SMS metadata from a top telecommunications firm.

India comes a distant second in terms of its people's perception of US monitoring of government, with 37 percent, while 32 percent in Thailand also find it acceptable.

Stokes added that Filipinos are also the most accepting of US surveillance of the public at 61 percent and American citizens at 69 percent.

Bangladesh with 71 percent, however, outranks the Philippines, with only 64 percent of its citizens find US monitoring of communications of suspected terrorists acceptable.

The Vietnamese, meanwhile, seem to be the most suspicious, with only 8 percent of the sample saying US surveillance on its leaders is acceptable. Only 9 percent in Vietnam are also in favor of monitoring of citizens.

The Pew survey was conducted on 48,643 respondents across 44 countries from March 7 to June 5 this year, yielding a margin of sampling error of 3.1 percent to 4.5 percent.

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2014/09/25/1373074/us-spying-philippine-leaders-ok-most-filipinos-study