Vice President Leni Robredo. INQUIRER file photo
MANILA, Philippines—The spokesperson of Vice President Leni Robredo sought to clarify the math involved in latest polling results that showed the second highest official of the land declining in popularity.
Barry Gutierrez, speaking for the Vice President, said the appearance of a decline in Robredo’s satisfaction rating based on results of a new survey by Social Weather Stations (SWS) was all that—appearance.
Gutierrez said if you do the math, Robredo would have a satisfaction rating of 50 percent or higher.
He blamed what he said were metrics being used by SWS for the appearance of low satisfaction for Robredo.
The SWS survey results for June 2019 showed Robredo having a net satisfaction rating of plus 28, down 14 points from plus 42 in March 2019. In Pulse Asia, the Vice President’s approval rating was 55 percent.
“You have to distinguish between the Pulse approach and the SWS approach,” Gutierrez said. “Pulse just releases approval, indifferent—undecided—and disapproval. SWS creates a net,” Gutierrez said at an interview at Robredo’s Quezon City reception office.
This method, Gutierrez said, supposedly gives an appearance that Robredo’s satisfaction rating in SWS was lower than in Pulse Asia, which is actually the other way around, as Robredo scored a 57 rating in SWS, two points higher than her 55 percent rating in Pulse Asia.
“So the movements look big,” Gutierrez said in a mix of English and Filipino. “Obviously, if your approval goes down let’s say by two points and transferred to disapproval, the net change is four points,” Gutierrez said. “So it seems bigger.”
“But if you look at the numbers of approval alone, more or less they’re the same in Pulse and SWS,” Gutierrez said. “SWS is in fact even higher. Actually, SWS is 57 percent. So it’s within the two percent if the margin of error is plus or minus 2 percent,” hensaid.
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Gutierrez also claimed that there were no drastic changes in Robredo’s satisfaction ratings since she took office in 2016. SWS’ graph showed that the Vice President’s ratings have swung between the plus 30 and plus 50 mark.
“And if you look at the VP’s numbers since 2016, it’s basically stayed the same,” Gutierrez said. “Sometimes it falls by 5 percent then it will rise by 5 percent,” he said.
“So it’s not really something that we’re concerned with,” Gutierrez said. He said the numbers were still high “given the amount of effort that has been poured into attempting to destroy her credibility online.”
“Despite that, we’ve maintained the numbers,” Gutierrez said.
“In fact, I feel that it’s even gone up,” he said. “For me, it’s a huge gain and testament” to people’s appreciation of Robredo’s antipoverry program Angat Buhay. /TSB