Online poll favors Aquino’s presence at PSG Christmas party

MANILA, Philippines – President Benigno Aquino III has received much criticism for attending the Christmas party of the Presidential Security Group in the midst of Tropical Storm Sendong’s destruction, but majority of the respondents of INQUIRER.net’s poll question on the issue remained on his side.

Out of a total of 2,943 respondents who answered the question “Do you think it was right for President Aquino to have attended the PSG Christmas party despite ‘Sendong’s’ onslaught”, majority (61.94 percent) said ‘yes’ while 38.06 percent replied ‘no’.

Netizens last week took to popular social networking sites to slam Aquino after learning through celebrity Valerie Concepcion’s tweets that he was present at his security aides’ Christmas party.

They criticized Aquino for celebrating the holidays while Sendong victims’ scrambled to search for missing family members.

But while many disapproved, there were also those who defended the president’s actions, saying that his being at the party was understandable.

Malacañang explained that Aquino did not linger at the party and merely attended the event to greet the members of the PSG and their families.

Sendong ravaged various areas in Northern Mindanao just days before Christmas, displacing thousands of families and killing more than a thousand persons in its wake.