The United States maintained high trust ratings among Filipinos, according to the fourth quarter 2018 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

In the SWS survey released on Wednesday, the United States received a "very good" +60 net trust rating. Japan and Australia had "good" net trust ratings with +34 and +31 respectively.

China got a "neutral" -7 trust rating.

The ''very good'' trust ratings for the United States remained at 71 percent much trust and 11 percent little trust in December 2018. The ratings had no significant change compared to September's +59 net ratings.

SWS said United States' net trust has been positive since the first survey in December 1994.

It rose from +18 in May 2005 to an excellent net rating of +82 in December 2013. Five out of six surveys showed the country's ratings has been +60 and above since June 2017.

Japan's net trust rating increased by one grade from moderate to good. From September's +28, it shoot up by 6 points to +34 in December.

From December 1994 to December 1996, surveys showed Japan had neutral net ratings ranging from -2 to +9. In June 1997, Japan's public ratings rose to moderate with +17 and has been at moderate to good levels. It reached a very good rating with +54 in December 2017.

Public trust ratings for Australia remained good at +31, but it had a 5 pint decrease compared from +36 in June 2018. SWS noted that the rating is the lowest in over nine years since the +19 moderate raring in September 2009.

Australia's first net trust rating was a moderate +11 in April 1995. It transitioned from neutral +3 to moderate +25 from September 1995 to March 2008.

It then reached a good +31 rating in September 2008 and has since been at +30 and above except from the +19 moderate rating in September 2009.

China's net trust rating rose from poor to neutral with 31 percent much trust and 39 percent little trust in December 2018. It is higher by 23 points from September 2018 -16 rating.

Only nine out of 48 survey had positive rating for China since August 1994. It went as high as moderate +17 in June 2010 and as low as bad -46 in September 2015.

The survey was conducted from December 16-19 using face-to-face interviews of 1,440 adults nationwide. It had sampling error margins of ±2.6 percent for national percentages, and ±5 percent each for Balance Luzon, Metro Manila, Visayas and Mindanao. Cristina Eloisa Baclig/DMS