Around 91 percent of Filipinos approve of the voluntary wearing of face masks in indoor and outdoor settings, a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey said.

Based on the 2022 fourth quarter survey conducted on December 10 to 14, sixty-four percent said they “strongly approve”, 27 percent “somewhat approve”, four percent were “undecided”, three percent “somewhat disapprove”, and one percent “strongly disapprove”.

Among those asked if they always use a face mask when leaving the house, 54 percent said they “always” used a mask, 22 percent said they used it “most of the time”, 15 percent said “sometimes”, eight percent said “rarely”, and one percent said “never”.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in October last year issued Executive Order (EO) No. 7 which allows voluntary wearing of face masks in indoor and outdoor settings.

The survey also showed that 91 percent of Filipino household heads agree with voluntary wearing of face masks for children in face-to-face classes.

Of the household heads, 65 percent said they “strongly agree”, 26 percent somewhat agree, three percent are “undecided”, three percent “somewhat disagree” and two percent “strongly disagree”.

According to the poll, four out of five households with children say they always make their child wear a face mask to school.

Of this number, 81 percent “always” make their children wear face masks to school, 11 percent say “most of the time”, five percent said “sometimes”, three percent said “never” and 0.5 percent said “never”. Jaspearl Tan/DMS