Duterte No. 1 most loving, caring and decisive leader – survey

FILE – President Rodrigo Duterte comforts the families of bombing victims in Davao City at a local hospital. Fourteen were killed and 67 were hurt in the bombing at the popular city night market on Sept. 2, 2016 (Photo from the Presidential Communications’ Office Photographers Division, via AP)

President Rodrigo Duterte is the leading official in terms of being most loving, caring, solid and decisive among the five highest government executives in the country, according to a recent survey.

The results of the “Pahayag” pilot survey, conducted by the Publicus Asia Inc., were revealed on Monday morning at the Marco Polo Hotel in Ortigas, Pasig City.

The survey tested the people’s perception on the top five highest officials in the country, and the top five most recent presidents, in terms of the “Love, Care and Solidarity” index, and the “Decisiveness Index.”

Based on the survey that studied 1,500 respondents from key cities nationwide from August 7 to 9, Duterte got 90 percent decisiveness rating, followed by Vice President Leni Robredo with only 5 percent. Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel and Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez all got 1 percent.

Mindanao gave Duterte a 97-percent decisiveness rating while Robredo received only one percent from the region. Those from the National Capital Region gave Duterte 92 percent and Robredo only got 4 percent. In Southern Luzon, where the vice president hails, Robredo got a 4-percent decisiveness rating while Duterte got 87 percent.

The survey has a 95 percent confidence level and ±2.58 percent margin of error.

Love, concern and care

Duterte is deemed the most loving by the respondents (82 percent); caring and concerned (79 percent). Robredo only got 13 percent in terms of being loving, concerned (17 percent) and caring (16 percent).

Pimentel comes third after 1 percent called him loving and caring and 2 percent called him concerned. Only 1 percent deemed Alvarez voted for him as caring, while Sereno got zero percent when asked about her being caring, concerned and loving.

Duterte got 97-percent votes when it comes to the love index in Mindanao, and 83 percent in the NCR; while 2 percent rated Robredo as loving in Mindanao, and 12 percent in NCR.

Maria Lourdes Tiquia, CEO and founder of Publicus Asia said some of the respondents might not be aware of the other politicians and their roles. “Maybe the results on Duterte are glaring because he is the top decision-maker. They might see his cursing (pagmumura) as a reflection of his anger and exasperation.

According to the survey, the top indicator of an officials’ love for the country is his projects for the poor (56 percent); good services (24 percent); delivery of promises to improve the country (18 percent); outreach programs (14 percent) and the removal of value added tax (12 percent).

The respondents says a caring president is shown when he visits the wounded and condoles during calamities (93 percent); takes into account his capacity to serve sincerely, looks for ways to serve and takes care of his health (92 percent) and respects the country’s symbols (91 percent).

Past presidents

Among the past presidents, Corazon Aquino had the highest votes as loving leader (38 percent), followed by Estrada with 27 percent, Fidel Ramos with 10 percent, Benigno Aquino III with 9 percent and now Congressman Arroyo with 5 percent.

Corazon Aquino remains the most concerned with 33 percent, Estrada (30 percent), Ramos (11 percent), Aquino III, (10 percent) and Arroyo (5 percent).

Approval rating

In terms of awareness rating, Duterte got a perfect 100 percent, followed by Vice President Leni Robredo with 87 percent, Sereno with 45 percent, Pimentel with 69 percent and Alvarez with 49 percent.

The survey took only three days and results were released after 11 days. There are 300 respondents in each region: NCR, Northern and Central Luzon, Southern Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, and were asked structured questions through face to face computer-aided personal interviews.

When it comes to approval rating, Duterte got a total of 88 percent, Robredo got 60 percent, Sereno got 51 percent, and Pimentel got 66 percent while Alvarez got 57 percent.

“This survey tests the emotional quotient of the leaders… There are leaders who are trained all their lives to be a leader but cannot connect to the masses…We want to introduce EQ as a frame,” Tiquia said.

Pulso, she said, is more normative; ours is more affective. “Filipino voters are very personal. It is high time to introduce a new way of measuring leaders, Tiquia said.

Tiquia emphasized that the group were not commissioned by any group. Their goal, she said, is to be able to come up with relevant and timely results that can help decision makers, at the same time, show the impact of the programs and issues to people.

Most pressing issue

For the respondents, the most pressing issue the  President and the government have to solve are lack of jobs (67 percent), education (63 percent), health care and economy (46 percent), corruption (31 percent), terrorism (17 percent) and environment (9 percent). The president should least focus on politics, said eight percent of the respondents.

To solve the country’s problems, 54 percent said the President should first do projects for the poor, fight criminality (29 percent) and fight graft and corruption (23 percent).

Of all the respondents, 84 percent think they will have a simple and comfortable life in the future, 13 percent a well-off life while only 3 percent think of having a rich life.

No Kian

There were no questions about the Philippine National Police, extrajudicial killings, or Kian delos Santos.

For this period, Publicus Asia dealt with “key-button” issues like the people’s perception on Federalism, Muslims and Islam, said Lilibeth Amatong, cofounder of Publicus Asia.

The survey said 67 percent had not yet read, heard or watched about federalism, the kind of government Duterte has been proposing even before the campaign period. Of the 33 percent who were aware of federalism, only 22 percent said they understood the discussions on the proposal.

The respondents learned about federalism mostly through television (89 percent), radio (35 percent) and newspapers (27 percent) and social media (20 percent).

Majority of the respondents (69 percent) believed that poverty is a result of the way the government allocates their resources, 26 percent disagreed while 4 percent said they did not know.

Under a possible federal government, 60 percent wanted to directly vote for the president, 59 percent wanted a semi-presidential form of governance where the President is the head of the state, while a prime minister serves as the head of the government.

Meanwhile, 53 percent wanted the equal election of two senators in each region of the federal government, while 40 percent wanted that the vote for the President would also be a vote for the vice president.

In terms of transitioning to a federal form of government, 36 percent of the 1,500 respondents wanted it done immediately. Of these, 55 percent hail from Mindanao, 36 percent from the Visayas, 33 percent from NCR, 28 percent from northern and Central Luzon and only 16 percent voted from Southern Luzon.

Only 3 percent did not want a shift to federalism, 66 percent wanted a shift during Duterte’s term, 19 percent wanted before 2022 or near the end of Duterte’s term.

Net connection not a problem

Amatong said the Pahayag poll is a breakthrough in terms of surveying.

“We would like to show the public that it is possible to conduct interviews and release survey results in a shorter time.

Normal conduct of surveys usually takes 30 days while CAPI-assisted surveys would only take around 13 days. Interviews are around 7 minutes only, said Jake Bergonia, Publicus’ Management and Information System’s head.

The next surveys will be conducted in the next few months and would cover other pressing issues, she added.

John Danao, CEO of the App Factory—Publicus’ partner, said with the mobile-app of conducting surveys, connectivity is not really a problem, as people can still interact with the application without internet connection. “Paper is clunky. We want speed,” he said, emphasizing that security is also a feature of the mobile survey app.

Publicus developed the Vox Survey, its own mobile survey application, and shifted from traditional pen and paper interviews to computer-assisted personal interviewing or CAPI.  Vox, Publicus’ research arm, also uses the American dial-based Perception analyzer, a tool for testing concepts, speeches, videos and television and radio ads on focus groups.

The group, a full-service political management and lobbying firm, started in 2003. It had already conducted two national surveys on the behavior of Filipino voters in 2009 and 2015.