President Rodrigo Duterte’s “very good” net satisfaction rating in the fourth quarter of 2018 is “obviously fake and utterly unbelievable,” Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Maria Sison said Monday.
He made the statement after Social Weather Stations said the majority of the people it polled were satisfied with Duterte’s performance.
SWS conducted the survey from Dec. 16 to 19 and used face-to-face interviews of 1,440 adults. It said the survey had a margin of error of ±2.6 percent for national percentages and ±5 percent each for Balance Luzon, Metro Manila, the Visayas and Mindanao.
“The high poll rating is obviously fake and utterly unbelievable. The people can easily see the shallow trickery in the ambiguity and slanted character of the questions that invite facile affirmative responses,” Sison said in a statement.
“They hold the SWS accountable for engaging in deception as the result of payola or coercion by the Duterte regime.”
Sison said SWS failed to ask the respondents’ sentiments on the President’s controversial remarks and some issues that became the stumbling block to Duterte administration’s policies.
“The SWS did not ask people whether they like Duterte for the following: rising prices of basic goods and services, the rise of mass unemployment and low incomes, [and] the rampant corruption of the Office of the President and downward,” Sison said.
He said SWS should have reconsidered asking the respondents about the mass murder of drug suspects, Duterte’s calling the God of the Catholics as stupid, and his encouragement to kill bishops, priests and lay leaders.
He said even the persecution of social activists, the bombing and destruction of Marawi City and other communities, and the sellout of Philippine sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea to China should have been included in the SWS report.
On Friday, SWS said seven out of every 10 people it polled or 74 percent were satisfied with Duterte, 11 percent were undecided, and the remaining 15 percent expressed dissatisfaction with him.
The Palace was quick to welcome the latest figures, saying the result only encouraged the President to continue his crackdown on corruption, criminality, drugs and the communist insurgency.
However, Opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, one of Duterte’s harshest critics, viewed the results differently, expressing his disbelief of the survey.
“Considering how difficult the times these days and the failures of Duterte, no one will believe in the SWS survey that 7 out of 10 Filipinos are satisfied with his governance,” Trillanes said in a statement.
“There might be sampling errors, or the respondents might have been in fear [of airing their sentiments].”
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo slammed Trillanes for doubting the results.
“This latest statement from the senator has demonstrated that he is an incorrigible illusionist who has believed in his own tales. His created web of lies on PRRD [Duterte] has so engulfed him that he forgets he is its creator,” Panelo said in a statement.
“His insatiable lust for publicity is incredible. His pathetic political analysis has only validated the suspicion that he threads in the realm of illusion.”