Support for Gwen up in online survey

AN informal  online poll on the Cebu Capitol impasse showed that  majority of respondents still believe the suspension of  Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia is justified.

But three days after the first results of the Cebu Daily News poll were released for  Dec. 21 to Dec. 23, the gap narrowed between those who say Garcia  deserves the six-month suspension and those who believe it’s a case of “power grabbing”.

As of Dec. 26, those who say Garcia’s suspension is a “power grab by her political opponents” represent 40.89 percent of  poll respondents, an improvement from 34.95 percent a few days ago.

Those who said the  suspension was justified decreased from 61.49 percent last Sunday to 56.43 percent three days later.

As of 6 p.m. last night,   551 netizens responded to the poll in CDN’s blogsite www.cebudailynews.wordpress.com,  up from 308 responses on  Sunday evening.

The informal online survey was launched last Dec. 21.

Governor Garcia has refused to leave her Capitol office since Dec. 19, 2012  when a six-month suspension was ruled  by the Office of the President as a penalty for bypassing the the authority of the late vice governor Greg Sanchez Jr. who filed a usurpation complaint in 2010.

Those who believe the suspension is an “non-issue” as long as services in the Capitol are unhampered registered at 1.7 percent.

The survey is powered by polldaddy.com, an online survey application.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda cited the CDN poll in a Dec. 23 Rappler.com report, saying:  “We’ve been monitoring the situation in Cebu and based on what we have heared, the suspension has popular support among the people of Cebu based on the local survey.”  /Marian Z. Codilla and Christine Emily L. Pantaleon