No big deal, says Palace of GMA’s lowest trust rating

BY REGINA BENGCO




Original Story: http://www.malaya.com.ph/02262010/news8.html


MALACAÑANG yesterday said the soaring of President Arroyo’s distrust rating to its highest level so far – 68 percent – in her few remaining months in office is no big deal.

"Alam mo naman iyong rating na iyan, they come and go. The President remains focused with what she’s doing," Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said yesterday.

Ermita said Arroyo has lately been doing the rounds of infrastructure projects under her Super Regions program to check on their status and to inform the people of what she has done while she is in power.

The January 22-26 Pulse Asia survey showed that 68 percent of its 1,800 respondents distrust Arroyo. Only 11 percent trust the President, which is also her lowest trust rating.

Ermita also brushed aside the survey finding that 52 percent of Filipinos will not vote for the presidential candidate whom Arroyo will endorse. This reinforces the perception that Arroyo’s endorsement is a "kiss of death" for administration presidential bet Gilberto Teodoro Jr.

"It’s a survey. It helps candidates know where they must improve on…We don’t take them as gospel truth. They’re not gospel truth," Ermita said.

He said the government’s detractors only want to pull Arroyo down. He expressed hope that Teodoro will be able to overcome the odds stacked up against him.

Teodoro’s trust rating was 31 percent, compared to 32 percent who distrust him and 36 percent who are not sure whether to trust him. He had the highest increase in trust rating among presidential candidates.

The Pulse Asia survey also showed that public trust in Liberal Party presidential bet Sen. Benigno Aquino III fell by 8 points, or from 72 percent in December 2009 to 64 percent in January 2010.

Nacionalista Party standard bearer Sen. Manuel Villar Jr.’s trust rating rose from 69 percent in December to 70 percent in January, making him the most trusted presidential candidate despite moves to censure him due to the controversial C-5 extension project.

The Aquino camp said the survey was sponsored by the NP "to bank on Villar’s massive advertisement surge last December and January."

For that same period, Aquino and Villar were locked in a pre-poll statistical tie, it said.

"Why only release the results of the trust survey now? said Edwin Lacierda, spokesman of the Aquino camp.

"First, they want to distract the people from the more recent TNS survey -- conducted from January 28 to February 3 on a sample size almost double that of the Pulse Asia survey -- which clearly shows that Aquino has widened his lead, with around 11 percentage points separating him and Villar," he said.

"The second reason is the same reason he is holding his concert today at MOA: Villar obviously released the belated survey results because wants to dampen the inevitable resonance of People Power on its 24th anniversary, which he fears will surely overwhelm his over-funded, shallow gimmickry," Lacierda said.

Perfecto Yasay, vice presidential candidate of Bangon Pilipinas, said the survey was "foul."

Yasay got a trust rating of 8 percent in the survey.

"Pulse Asia headlines the most moneyed candidates as the most ‘trusted’ while those who have only begun their campaigns because of modest resources and in strict compliance of the law are characterized by ‘distrust,’" Yasay said.

"It is disheartening how quickly less popular candidates are labeled as mistrusted compared to those who are more known by virtue of their having been in traditional politics for too long. Obviously, the survey was nearsightedly designed without fairness in mind," he also said.


Original Story: http://www.malaya.com.ph/02262010/news8.html