Already regarded as the most unpopular president the Philippines ever had since the end of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo found Monday her popularity rating taking yet another dive. In its 2009 Fourth Quarter survey held from Dec. 5 to 10, the Social Weather Station (SWS) said Arroyo recorded a minus 23 performance rating, which the polling firm categorized as “poor.” SWS said the minus 23 rating was based from the result of the survey showing that 28 percent of the respondents expressed satisfaction with Arroyo's performance as against 51 percent who expressed dissatisfaction. The polling firm said the Arroyo government's response to the massacre of 57 journalists and other civilians last Nov. 23 in Maguindanao appeared partly to blame for the latest decline in the President's popularity. “People in all areas and classes had mixed opinions about government's action to bring justice to the Maguindanao massacre case,” the SWS said in a statement. In its latest survey, the SWS said it asked 2,100 respondents nationwide: “Overall, are you happy or unhappy with the current national administration?” Arroyo's minus 23 rating was lower than her minus 20 mark recorded in SWS' September 2009 survey. It was also lower than her previous record-low rating of minus 21, which was recorded by SWS in June 2008. The latest SWS survey showed that the Arroyo administration got a “poor” net satisfaction rating of minus 17 on suppressing politicians with private armies in Mindanao, and a “neutral” score of minus 2 on its response to the massacre. SWS' Net Satisfaction Ratings rate plus 50 and above as “very good;” plus 30 to plus 49 as “good;” plus 10 to plus 29 as “moderate,” plus 9 to minus 9 as “neutral;” minus 10 to minus 29 as “poor;” minus 30 to minus 49 as “bad;” and minus 50 or lower as “very bad.” In its statement, SWS said public opinion was mixed on what the Arroyo government has done to resolve the Maguindanao massacre case. “(The survey) found mixed opinions on what the government had done up to that point to resolve the Maguindanao massacre case with justice, with 41 percent satisfied and 44 percent dissatisfied, for a neutral net satisfaction rating of minus 2 (percent satisfied minus percent dissatisfied, correctly rounded). The remaining 15 percent were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied,” SWS said. The survey was conducted Dec. 5 to 10, using face-to-face interviews of 2,100 adults divided into random samples of 300 in Metro Manila and 600 each in Balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The survey had a sampling error margins of plus or minus 2.2 percent.
