IF WE are to believe the latest Pulse Asia survey released on Monday, October 7, Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano is more trusted than Vice President Leni Robredo. Cayetano received a 62 percent trust rating and 64 percent approval rating in September, the first time the Speaker was rated by Pulse Asia since his election as top House leader in July.
Robredo, meanwhile, saw dips in her trust and approval ratings last month compared to her numbers in June. Her trust rating fell by six points from 52 percent in June to 46 percent in September, while her approval rating decreased to 50 percent in September from 55 percent in June. This stands in contrast to her past three years survey ratings whence, Robredo has been getting higher approval and trust ratings compared to the first two Speakers under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration: former Davao del Norte 1st District representative Pantaleon Alvarez and ex-president turned Pampanga 2nd District representative Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
For the record, Robredo and Cayetano had been opponents during the 2016 vice president elections. Robredo won the vice presidency by a slim margin of 263,473 votes against second placer Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
Robredo got a total of 14,418,817 votes while Marcos received 14,155,344 votes. Cayetano was a far third placer with just 5,679,102 votes.
As reported by Rappler, the Pulse Asia survey released on Monday was conducted from September 16 to 22 and polled 1,200 adult respondents on their appreciation and trust for the country’s top 5 officials: President Rodrigo Duterte, who scored the highest; Vice President Leni Robredo; House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano; Senate President Vicente Sotto III; and Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin.
The survey was conducted at the height of the controversy surrounding the early release of convicts through Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) law, the Senate investigation on the alleged “GCTA-for-sale” and “hospital pass-for-sale” schemes in the New Bilibid Prison, the return of polio in the Philippines after 19 years, and death of Philippine Military Academy Cadet Fourth Class Darwin Dormitorio due to hazing.
During said period, the Cayetano-led House of Representatives passed the proposed P4.1-trillion budget for 2020 on 3rd and final reading on September 20, right in the middle of the Pulse Asia survey period. Hard questions which Pulse Asia needs to answer: how many were their respondents for the survey? Did they use multi-stage, stratified sampling for the nationwide survey?
If the Asia Pulse Survey like the Social Weather Station or SWS is to be taken seriously, we need to know if they use only 1200 respondents as their standard practise of this sort. With no actual nationwide probability sampling, the result is not representative of the whole Filipino populace. Most of these quickie surveys are “pang trending lang” no stratification by regions even, Pulse Asia and SWS don’t really go down to the provinces. That is why in Pulse Asia and SWS survey, Duterte remains, “popular”, and his policies and programs as well. In truth, the survey results are not conclusive, only indicative.