Where the fallacy of ratings nests?

The trust and performance ratings of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. as issued by Pulse Asia of 10 to14 September public opinion survey did not gravitate around the views foregrounded by the resource persons from either La Salle or the University of the Philippines over CNN sequel, dubbed, "The Big Dip."

Out of the 16 "most urgent national concerns" the poll body summated, none remotely refer to the rice issue nor the agriculture sector as the culprits.

However subject-matter-experts they may be, it turned out that they're just the run-of-the-mill views of individuals invited to a TV talk show at a moment's notice. Sadly, the ideas or beliefs they have propounded necessitate even greater scrutiny by students or scholars of public policy or economics.

First, the point raised by an in-person interviewee from La Salle who equated the drop of the president's performance rating to 65 percent as "pretty much the same set who voted for him a year ago" is a classic case of comparing apples with oranges. To pair two rather "diametrically opposed" variables as similar not only rests on clear ambiguity but is skewed.

Second, the point raised via Zoom by a UP dean that the ratings of past administrations were not as "significant" as that of FM Jr.'s, which suffered a double-digit drop, it must be mentioned that the respective ratings of Presidents Rodrigo Duterte, Benigno Aquino III, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo — all have plummeted worse than FM Jr.

For instance, PNoy's approval rating has dropped from a high of 79 percent at the beginning of his term to 54 percent as of September 2015, notwithstanding intervening events like the Mamasapano bloodbath, the Luneta hostage-taking, etc. For another, PGMA's 18-21 September 2009 survey found 23 percent satisfied but 62 percent dissatisfied with her performance — close to scraping bottom.

Even DU30 has not been spared the whip, as his net satisfaction rating (satisfied minus unsatisfied) dropped by double digits for the third time from November 2020 to May 2021. As well-articulated in the course of the TV interview — "numbers don't lie" — but in this instant case, the experts raised glaringly dubious points reminiscent of the sophists in Plato's Dialogues.

Another observation is the common tendency of presidents to downplay, dismiss, and debunk survey findings and consequently dither over what to do with societal issues of grave concern. In fairness, both experts from La Salle and UP shared one common ground: The condescending optimism that a reverse trend is yet a possibility.

When they were asked, as a matter of expert advice, what they would suggest the president must do, one thought FM Jr. should address the issue head-on, chiefly let the Department of Agriculture be chaired, whereas the other thought, in a typical cavalier fashion, that everything must be up for the president.

Regardless of whether FM Jr.'s trust ratings dropped from 85 percent to 71 percent and performance from 80 percent to 65 percent based on 16 enumerated urgent concerns, the more important response is that the President did not dismiss such findings as false or without basis. But as it was his response to the survey itself, if so, with this CNN interview in addition, he may have been led to believe that the predominant issues raised by the experts were largely those in the tabulated survey parameters, except to the contrary.

Survey datasets, when checked, the three "most urgent national concerns" on top of the chart are notably the following, viz: (1) controlling inflation; (2) increasing the pay of workers; and (3) creating more jobs — with overall scores of 74, 49, and 27, respectively.

Such other MUNCs as — "7th, addressing involuntary hunger and 8th, assistance to farmers (i.e., selling their products)" — in that pecking order have a summation of only 14 and 13, respectively.

Clearly, the barycenter of intelligent discussion isn't on agriculture or rice, nor the two major ambiguous assumptions experts put forth, fortuitously rendering the conversation a ritual of "thought-terminating clichés" — pardon my irreverence.