Down, down, down

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

05/15/2008

No matter what Gloria Arroyo does and says to gain “pogi points,” she continues to remain very unpopular, with the latest nationwide survey from Ibon showing Gloria’s dissatisfaction rating skyrocketing to 81.67 percent, with only 7.89 percent satisfied with her and her performance.

The April Ibon survey, with over 1400 respondents showed that her satisfaction rating plummeted by 10 percentage points in the last three months, giving her a net satisfaction rating of -74.

The message from Filipinos is crystal clear: They think she is the pits, by way of her presidency and even of herself.

If it was just a blip, due to some negative portrayal of her in her performance, for her to obtain such a plunge in satisfaction or approval ratings, it stands to reason that the numbers would be going up instead of plummeting to such depths. Imagine a national leader having less than eight percent of the population satisfied with her performance as president?

During that time the survey was conducted, there was already a rice crisis, and in a bid to gain pogi points in the media, she announced that she would be retaining the price of cheap NFA rice, to ensure that the poor would have affordable rice.

She even goes to the extent of personally checking on whether the suspected rice hoarders have already been charged, berates the officials for the delay in filing charges against the alleged rice hoarders and even creating the impression that she wants a short cut on the process of determining whether a case should be filed against these alleged hoarders.

Frankly, she shouldn’t be doing that at all, as she is giving off a clear message, not just to the state prosecutors but also to the judiciary that she wants them found guilty, even when there may be no strong evidence to back up these charges.

For the past two weeks, she and her aides have zeroed in on the high electric power rates, blasting away at Meralco, pointing to it as the culprit of high power rates.

While it is true that Meralco has been shortchanging the public, as discovered during the joint congressional hearings, such as passing on to the consumers some half-a-million pesos of the so-called systems loss, the eVAT and the electric consumption of Meralco offices to the consumers, along with passing on the discounted electric power rates for ecozones to the regular consumers, she, however, refuses to budge on the Lopez charge that the rates go up also because of the high eVAT plus the royalties paid to natural gas.

Neither has she moved to have her allies go after Napocor, which has also been shortchanging the Filipino people.

Still and all, even with all those propaganda gimmicks she has engaged in, her approval ratings continue to plunge, month after survey month — no matter what research outfit conducts the surveys.

It is predicted that Gloria’s aides will again sing the old song of the presidency not being a popularity contest, and that the ratings are down for her because of some negative media projection of her.

That is all bull and she certainly knows it. A president — any president for that matter — has to be popular with the people or at least, have the majority of the people satisfied with the presidential performance, for that president to be able to harness public support for whatever plans and visions for the country and the nation that leader has. Without public support, and with zero credibility moreover, that president is doomed especially when crises strike.

But not Gloria, who believes that as long as she pays off her police and military generals, she can buck the public tide and reign till even kingdom come.

Marcos thought so too, but look where it got him — and he wasn’t even that unpopular with the Filipino people; only with the anti-Marcos Filipinos.

Gloria will have to go, and if the Constitution is followed, she exits in 2010. And this is her biggest problem to date. She certainly knows that once out of Malacañang, she will have to face criminal charges and account for her crimes against the Filipino people.

And she knows she can’t stay in Malacañang forever, even if she keeps paying off her generals.

Not even proclaiming martial law is going to work, since the constitutional martial law proviso has been watered down.

She can always stage a Palace coup, close down Congress, jail all her critics and be the sole government and the sole law.

But the world, to quote her, will no longer tolerate a dictatorship in the Philippines or Gloria.

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