The recent survey results showing that majority of Filipinos are opposed to amending the 1987 Constitution “could be misleading,” President Rodrigo Duterte’s Charter change (Cha-cha) committee said on Tuesday.
At the Senate inquiry on the proposal to change or amend the present charter, Consultative Committee (Con-com) spokesperson Ding Generoso said the survey conducted by Pulse Asia was actually positive.
A survey conducted by Pulse Asia from June 15 to 21 showed that two in three Filipinos or 67 percent were against moves to change the 1987 Constitution.
READ: 67% of Filipinos oppose Charter change, says Pulse Asia survey
“If we look at the survey, the survey results could be misleading,” Generoso said. “Pulse Asia groups the answers into four — which is ‘Yes – Now,’ ‘Not now but sometime in the future,’ ‘Not ever,’ and ‘Don’t Know,’”
“What Pulse Asia does is that it combines the ‘Not now but in the future’ with ‘Not ever,’ which to our view is wrong because ‘not now’ is not a rejection, it is not a negative answer, it is in fact a qualified yes,” he explained.
He pointed out that the country is not amending the Constitution in the “future” when the final draft is deliberated and presented to the people for plebiscite.
“The proper way to interpret the result is…1 and 2 should be combined so that in reality what we have is 48% of the respondents saying they ‘agree’ to change the Constitution,” he said.
“The qualified yes should not be treated as negative, it is in fact positive,” he added.
Generoso likewise stressed that the Con-com has just finished the draft Charter, and the discussion, consultation, and debates have just began.
“So we would imagine that it is only in the coming weeks and months that the public pulse would change,” he said.
“Pulse Asia has yet to respond to INQUIRER.net’s request for a comment.”/ee