Suarez in hot water with Palace, allies for GMA survey release

August 5, 2008

Presidential ally Rep. Danilo Suarez is in hot water with Malacañang and his fellow congressmen over the release of his commissioned survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) which showed President Arroyo’s nationwide dis-satisfaction rating plunging to even deeper depths, with two thirds of Filipinos thumbing her down.

Monday, Suarez, a staunch ally of the President in the administration the results of a commissioned SWS survey conducted between that July 13 to 17 showing only 17 percent of Filipinos saying they are satisfied with Mrs. Arroyo, a drop from a July SWS survey of 5 percent of satisfied Filipinos.

A congressional source yesterday told the Tribune that Suarez, a member of the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), the political party of the President, commissioned the survey to “discredit” Speaker Prospero Nograles, in a bid to supposedly gain support from other presidential allies in the House and in Malacañang, to get Nograles ousted from his top seat as this would provide Suarez the opportunity to make a bid for the speakership for himself.

“That was meant to discredit Nogie (the Speaker) as only 25 percent expressed satisfaction for the Speaker, who ended up with a negative 15 percent net rating,” the source said, adding that “it boomeranged on him, as he had to show the whole survey, which showed an even worse rating for the President. Now he not only got the President’s ire, but also his colleagues in the House.”

The same congressional source also informed the Tribune that Suarez is allegedly into forming an impeachment bloc against Mrs. Arroyo, without his necessarily coming out in the open, for him to get more clout with Malacanang.

The Tribune informant, an administration ally, claimed that he knew whom Suarez had tapped for the “demolition” job.

“Some of them went along with the idea, knowing that they may even get a lot of money out of it, just as the other impeachment hearings went.”

In a press conference held last Monday, Suarez explained that he commissioned this survey to determine the sentiment of the people toward the programs of the national government and its leaders.

“We want basis to compare our findings in the Oversight. We want to determine the pulse of the people,” he said.

It can be recalled that the Oversight Committee, chaired by Suarez, conducted 10-day assessment and review on some of the government’s program and agenda, in which he said some of the project need more compliance and improvement.

He released the results of the SWS survey showing that only 17 percent of Filipinos satisfied with the way Arroyo runs the country.

For the overall rating, the survey showed that the national government only got 28 percent satisfaction rating.

The Oversight Committee has submitted several recommendations that will help lock in the gains for government and further enhance its capacity to effect change for the good of the economy and in making a difference on the lives of the people.

The survey also revealed the satisfaction ratings of selected government institutions which results are: Senate, 32 percent satisfaction rating; Supreme Court, 43 percent; House of Representatives 37 percent; Bureau of Internal Revenue, 37 percent and the Cabinet as a whole, 33 percent.

On the issue of reducing the term of office of the President, Vice president and Senators, still majority of the people agreed that for President and Vice President, 56 percent of Filipinos wanted to reduce the term of office from the present six years to five years.

For senators, 55 percent agreed to reduce it to five from six years while for the congressmen, 63 percent believed that the term should not be increased from three to five years.

Suarez refused to issue any statement yesterday, saying he will be holding a press conference today.

Meanwhile, a Pulse Asia survey released yesterday showed what the Filipinos see as the most important characteristic the next president should possess.

The results were : 39 percent nationwide say he should be “pro-poor; 35 percent say he can enforce the law equally on influential as well as ordinary people; 34 percent say he must be knowledgeable in the management of government; 29 percent say he must be trustworthy.

What the Filipinos want the next president to do is for him to prevent the rapid increase in prices of people’s basic necessities (67 percent), reducing the great poverty of many Filipinos (49 percent); eradicating widespread graft and corruption in government (43 percent); and creating sufficient jobs and livelihood (42 percent).

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