ONLY the Senate registered majority approval and trust scores among the three coordinate and key government institutions, the latest Fourth Quarter Ulat ng Bayan survey showed Monday.
The upper chamber of the national legislature managed to get small majority approval and trust ratings in December 2017 at 55 percent and 56 percent, respectively.
Indecision towards the Senate’s performance is at 35 percent, while 10 percent disaproved of its performance.
Nearly half of Filipinos, at 50 percent and 49 percent, respectively, do approve and trust the performance of the Lower House.
Level of distrust on Congress, meanwhile, ranges at 12 percent.
Almost half or 48 percent have a positive opinion about the Supreme Court’s work but around the same percentages were ambivalent (39 percent) or distrustful of the high court (16 percent).
The latest survey, conducted from December 10 to 15 and 17, was fielded among 1,200 respondents and had sampling error margins of ±3 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.
In the Senate, Senafe President Aquilino Pimentel III said a nationally elected official was logically expected to have a higher national rating compared to a locally elected official.
“Hence [there is] nothing out of the ordinary when you compare my rating with that of the speaker,” said Pimentel, referring to House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.
“But I should point out that for a locally elected official, the ratings of the speaker are very high and very impressive. Hence, congrats to the Speaker,” he added.
Pimentel was sought for his comment about his 57 percent national approval rating, a 53 percent trust rating ompared to Alvarez’s 42 percent approval and 37 trust ratings in last month’s Pulse Asia’s nationwide survey.
Asked if he expected an impressive mark from the public amid the issues being raised by some groups against the administration—like exytrajudicial killings, charter change and the TRAIN law, he said the Senate was different, adding the Senate always investigated allegations of any crime done.
“Hence that willingness to investigate, fight and put an end to abuse and/or allegations of abuse, helped me and the Senate with our ratings,” he said.
He said TRAIN exempted first P250,000 income of all Filipinos from income tax.
“On chacha, especially federalism, while I admit that not all are convinced as of the moment about federalism, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a critical mass out there supporting federalism. I believe there is. That’s why I say “federalism now has its time,” he said in Filipino.
“All of these circumstances, I am sure, have contributed to high ratings,” he added.