About low survey ratings Page 1 of 3 Column for Philippine Daily Inquirer PDI 09-04, 1-22-08 [for publication on 1-24-2008] About low survey ratings Mahar Mangahas Monday’s SWS release included the first reading of public opinion on Juan Ponce Enrile as Senate President. At the start of last December, there were 38 percent satisfied and 33 dissatisfied with his performance, or a net satisfaction rating of +5. SWS refers to +5 as “neutral” since single-digit net ratings are indistinguishable from zero, and zero means exact balance between satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Based on the SWS archives, which show that Mr. Enrile had net scores of +21 in September 2008 and +30 in December 2007, his new score of +5 is definitely a comedown. Strictly speaking, however, it’s more appropriate to compare it with ratings of earlier senate presidents than with ratings of plain senators, including JPE himself before he headed the senate. The previous senate head, Manny Villar, had scores from +39 to +59, which are “good” to “very good’ in SWS terminology, ending at +43 in September 2008. Except for Franklin Drilon’s +2 (February 2005) and +8 (March 2005), all other senate presidents, since 1990, had scores of +22 and up (“moderate” starts at net +10, “good” at +30, and “very good” at +50). Why did public satisfaction with Mr. Enrile drop so much, compared to when he was a plain senator? I think the only thing that could have made a big impression on the public was the sudden realignment in the senate, which led to his takeover from the very popular Mr. Villar. In other words, the drop in the rating probably had to do more with the senate realignment than with JPE’s personal performance. Incidentally, Mr. Villar’s popularity has not at all suffered by his becoming a plain senator again. The case of Speaker Nograles. The new SWS release also showed 22 percent satisfied and 39 percent dissatisfied, or a net rating of –17, with the performance of Speaker Prospero Nograles. In all three quarters since he took over from Jose de Venecia, his net satisfaction rating has been “poor” (meaning, net -10 or worse). M. Mangahas, Social Climate, PDI 09-04 Jan 24 About low survey ratings About low survey ratings Page 2 of 3 No previous speaker, since 1990, has had scores so low, even though JDV himself had not been too popular for fully three years -- all the way from December 2004 to December 2007, his scores were only –8 to +9, or all neutral. Earlier, from September 2001 to August 2004, JDV’s scores of +9 to 23 were at most moderate. Although the SWS archives have no surveys about Mr. Nograles when he was a plain congressman, to compare with his ratings as a speaker, I doubt very much if he would have gotten negative ratings. In my survey experience, a government official, in the absence of adverse publicity specific to him, is generally rated kindly, or given the benefit of the doubt, by the public. So I would assume that Mr. Nograles would have been rated not less than neutral before he took over, i.e. that his rating fell when he became the speaker. The reason it fell, I think, is because the public disagreed that JDV deserved to be toppled by the administration after his son Joey, and eventually he himself, had blown the whistle on the ZTE-NBN deal. In other words, the drop in the rating was more an expression of public disgust about the removal of JDV than an expression of disapproval of Mr. Nograles’s work in running the House. The case of Speaker Fuentebella. Aside from JDV and Nograles, the only other Speaker of the House who scored below zero was Arnulfo Fuentebella, who had a net satisfaction rating of -4 in December 2000. It was the first time since SWS started tracking the performance of Speakers in 1990 that anyone scored below zero. At that time, Mr. Fuentebella had taken over, interestingly enough, from Speaker Manny Villar. In nine SWS surveys during his speakership, Villar’s net satisfaction ratings had ranged between +18 and +42, ending at a good +39 in September 2000. In October 2000, Villar summarily abridged the House’s plenary session to decide whether the impeachment complaint against President Estrada should proceed to the Senate for trial, by ruling that the signatures on the complaint constituted, ipso facto, the needed number to approve the complaint. He M. Mangahas, Social Climate, PDI 09-04 Jan 24 About low survey ratings About low survey ratings Page 3 of 3 thus succeeded in bringing about the impeachment trial, but at the cost of losing his speakership when Erap loyalists in the House regrouped. Fuentebella’s one and only survey rating was taken when the impeachment trial had started. This rating was, I think, not so much the people’s evaluation of the quality of Fuentebella’s work as their expression of solidarity with the move of Villar. By the time SWS did its first survey in 2001, the President was already Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and the Speaker was Jose de Venecia for the second time. Manny Villar, his popularity unscathed, went on to win a senatorial seat in the next election. * * * Sceptical Germany. The annual holiday greeting card of the Allensbach Institute of Demoskopy, the German opinion polling pioneer, is a time-chart of December answers to the question, “Is it with hopes or with fears that you enter the year [2009]?” The range for all Germany, since 1990, has been from 31 to 56. Percentages up from the year before are marked by beetles, and those that fell, by grasshoppers. After four successive beetles, came a grasshopper in 2008, as the percentage with hopes fell drastically to 34, from 50 in 2007. Allensbach’s greeting says: “It is with skepticism that the population looks to the new year. We hope that the year will give rise to a new sense of optimism.” Filipinos are very different. In the SWS surveys since 2000, using the same question, the percentage of Filipinos hopeful about the coming new year has been between 81 (2004) and 95 (2002), and was 92 last December. Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or [email protected]. # M. Mangahas, Social Climate, PDI 09-04 Jan 24 About low survey ratings .