Pulse poll shows Noy trust, approval down

The trust and approval rating on President Aquino slid by a substantial five points nationwide and by 12 percent in the National Capital Region in the latest Pulse Asia survey after public confidence fell on his administration’s perform-ance on six key issues including the equal enforcement of the law, creating more jobs and controlling the population growth showed huge declines from October last year.

Aquino in response to his declining rating in the survey said it is the least of his concerns, primarily because of the many national issues he has to attend to particularly the crises affecting overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Japan, Libya, and other chaos-stricken countries in the Middle East simultaneously.

The survey showed that Aquino’s trust rating slipped to

75 percent in the latest survey from 80 percent last October while his approval rating fell from 79 percent in October to 74 percent.

Most notably, Aquino’s approval rating in the National Capital Region (NCR) declined by 12 points to 66 percent from 78 percent last October.

Pulse Asia noted that public perception on six issues confronting the Aquino administration were not favorable as reflected in the latest survey.

The Pulse Asia poll indicated that from last October, public approval declined on controlling population growth (down 11 points), creating more jobs (down 11 points), enforcing the law equally on all Filipinos (down nine points), fighting criminality (down eight points), increasing the pay of workers (down eight points) and controlling inflation (down eight points).

Disapproval also became more pronounced during the period on controlling inflation (up 11 points), increasing the pay of workers (up eight points), creating more jobs (up eight points), reducing poverty (up eight points), fighting criminality (up seven points) and controlling population growth (up seven points).

Pulse Asia said still nearly three in four Filipinos (74 percent) approve of the performance of Aquino in the past three months.

“Approval ratings range from 66 percent in Metro Manila to 83 percent in the Visayas and from 69 percent in the best-off Class ABC to 80 percent in the poorest Class E,” Pulse Asia said.

Pulse Asia added the administration got majority approval ratings on only three out of 11 national issues listed in the survey.

Out of the 11 key issues on which the Aquino administration was rated majority approval ratings are recorded only on fighting graft and corruption (56 percent), fighting criminality (54 percent) and improving the national peace situation (53 percent).

Filipinos are most critical of the national administration’s initiatives to control the spiraling prices of basic commodities (32 percent) and to reduce poverty (26 percent), the Pulse Asia survey showed.

Aquino, in a chance interview, said he has not been briefed as to the results of the latest Pulse Asia survey yet because his “breakfast fare” has been on the developments with respect to the nuclear problem in Japan and the political crises hounding Libya and the rest of the Middle East.

Aquino added that he’s also attending to the flash floods and landslides which left several towns of Leyte submerged thus warranting the entire province and its neighbor, Bohol, to be placed under a state of calamity.

Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Secretary Ramon Carandang, for his part, opted to look at the latest survey on a positive note rather than complain about the five percent drop of Aquino’s trust and approval ratings.  “The President’s ratings remain high. Historically, some slippage is expected in any leaders’ ratings and this is a modest decline. But it is a reminder to us to keep on delivering what the people expect of us,” Carandang said in a text message. –Aytch S. de la Cruz, Daily Tribune