President Gloria Arroyo will deliver her 8th State of the Nation Address (SONA) amid her very low and negative satisfaction rating and a public perception that her administration is the most corrupt in the entire Philippine history, according to a leading survey outfit Pulse Asia.
Arroyo, the longest serving president since Ferdinand Marcos, has been performing very badly in opinion surveys and is making—and breaking records—when in comes to satisfaction ratings.
As far as net satisfaction ratings of post-Marcos presidents are concerned, Arroyo holds four records: she is the first post-Marcos president to receive a negative rating; she is the only president since 1986 who received a negative satisfaction rating for the longest time; she is the president who received the lowest rating at start of her administration; and she is the one who received the lowest rating among the four presidents since the fall of Marcos regime.
The latest survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) proves Arroyo’s very low satisfactory rating. It showed that Arroyo is the most unpopular post-EDSA president after her net popularity rating crashed to -38 and broke her old record of -33 in May 2005.
The survey also showed that “gross dissatisfaction is at majority levels” across the geographic regions and it found “dissatisfaction worsening” across all socio-economic class.
Effect of global economy
Palace officials downplayed the results of the survey and said the global economic slowdown, the soaring prices of food and fuel, the president’s pushing for the expanded value added tax (EVAT) and other “unpopular decisions” all contributed to the her low net satisfaction ratings.
Inflation hit 11.4 percent in June 2008, the highest since May 1994 while unemployment stands at 8 percent, higher by 0.6 percentage points from the same period last year.
Even the 7.3 percent growth in the economy seemed to have little effect on her ratings as government statistics showed an increasing incidence of poverty.
“Beneath the exhibition of the GDP growth is an un-erased scaffolding of poverty and misery,” said the Freedom from Debt Coalition. “The National Statistical Coordination Board reported 16% increase in the number of poor Filipinos, from 23.8 million in 200 to 27.6 million in 2006.”
Apart from this, a recent survey by the SWS showed at least 2.9 million Filipino families went hungry at least once in the last three months. It also showed that at least 760,000 families experienced severe hunger in the past three months.
Different scenario before
Arroyo’s satisfaction rating, however, has a different story if one is going to look at her ratings before she was installed as president in 2001. She consistently enjoyed high satisfaction rating in surveys and she got a high number of votes when she ran for senator in 1995 and for vice president in 1998.
She topped the 1995 senatorial election after receiving 15.7 million votes—the highest during that time—and was ahead of more than 3 million votes to the second placer, Raul Roco. Her net satisfaction ratings during her term as senator did not fall below +40 across all regions.
When she ran for vice president, she garnered almost 13 million votes and surpassed the 11 million votes received by Estrada. As vice president, her satisfaction rating never went below +47 except during the height of the impeachment trial of her predecessor in December 2000.
Low initial satisfactory rating
Two months after she was catapulted to the presidency by a people power revolution, Arroyo enjoyed a net satisfaction rating of +24.
The figure, however, was below the ratings received by other three presidents before her during the start of their administration. Aquino received +53 net rating in May 1986, or three months after she rose to power. Fidel Ramos’s first net rating in September 1992 was +66 while Estrada posted +60 in September 1998.
Negative for the 1st time
A year later, she received a rating of -14, which at that time was the lowest for the president. It was also the first time that a Philippine president received a negative rating.
SWS, in its March 2003 survey, said Arroyo sacrificed her popularity by joining the United States coalition of forces fighting the regime of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The same survey asked respondents about the three subjects, out of the list of nine subjects. It showed that 59 percent of the respondents followed the US moves against Iraq, an event that scored higher over some domestic issues like fighting Muslim and bandit groups in the country (52%), terrorists acts in the Philippines (42%), Estrada plunder trial (34%), and proposal to amend the Constitution (11%).
The survey also showed that 63% preferred the Philippines to be neutral in the US-Iraq conflict, 85 percent expected the war to worsen the economy and 76 percent believed it would increase the danger of terrorists attacks on the country.
“Since Filipinos do give much moral support to the United States and the global war on terrorism, their disagreement with the President’s decision to join the ‘coalition of the willing’ is explained by the widespread fear that a war would have harsh economic and security impacts on the country,” the March 2003 SWS said.
Negative streak
Her popularity was able to recover and she even got a net rating of +30 on March 2004. However, after the August 2004 survey, her rating dipped to -6 in October 2004. What followed was a streak of negative net satisfactory rating that would last for almost four years.
From March 2005-November 2006, she got double-digit negative ratings as the country jumped from one scandal to another, with some of them involving her family members. During the height of the Hello Garci scandal in 2005, her rating hovered from -23 to -30. The scandal raised the issue of the Arroyo’s legitimacy and nearly caused the fall of her government, especially when former President Corazon Aquino and some of her Cabinet members called for her resignation.
Succeeding scandals that came out—cash gifts scandal in Malacanang and the National Broadband Network deal with ZTE—made her ratings stay in the negative level.
2007 elections
Many believed that Arroyo’s unpopularity was also behind the dismal performance of the administration bets in the 2007 midterm elections.
Team Unity’s Michael Defensor, Prospero Pichay, and Ralph Recto failed to make it to the winning circle despite their well-oiled machinery while candidates with little funding like Antonio Trillanes—who was involved in an attempt to unseat her—surprised everyone by landing on the Magic 12.
Defensor is closely identified with the president since he had worked in her Cabinet in various capacities: as presidential chief of staff, environment secretary, and chair of the housing and urban development coordinating council.
When he accepted his defeat, Defensor admitted that his closeness with the president affected people’s perception of his independence.
“My advice to him is to re-invent himself, show his independence from President Arroyo. He deserves to be seen more than as an apologist of the President,” said Defensor who was speaking of himself in third person as he conceded his defeat in the senatorial race.
Most corrupt
Apart from low satisfactory rating, Arroyo has to also deal with the public perception that corruption became more prevalent under her administration. A Pulse Asia survey in October last year showed that 45 percent of respondents believed that Arroyo’s administration has the most intense allegations of corruption.
The survey also showed that most respondents (42%) view her as the most corrupt president in the Philippine history.
Former Presidents Marcos and Estrada, who were both accused of massive corruption and were both ousted by people power fared better than Arroyo. Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled for 21 and is accused of salting away billions of dollars, was named as most corrupt by 35 percent of the respondents.
Estrada, who was found guilty of plunder but later pardoned by Arroyo was cited as the most corrupt by 16 percent.
This is the third in a series of special reports on the State of the Nation. The first two are on President Arroyo’s highly political appointments and the national budget.
(Jesus F. Llanto / abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak
