By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
Polls have always been the source of relief for President Duterte each time his back is pushed against the wall. It’s the screaming surveys that put him ahead of controversy and fuel his audacity to push back at criticisms even if they hold water.
Scoring his all-time high satisfaction rating at 84 percent in the heat of the pandemic in November 2020, Duterte sure looked invincible as he was entering the last full year of his presidency. Ironically, at this time of his soaring popularity, his administration was cooking up sickening procurement deals that siphoned billions in government funds into such questionable suppliers as Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp.
In May and June this year, results of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) polls showed that Duterte’s satisfaction rating has been dropping and down 75 percent. No later ratings are yet available, but as much as Malacanang tries to deflect and undermine the Senate investigations to lay a spotless white sheet over disturbing hints of corruption in government over the Pharmally deals, such indiscretion will further eat away at Duterte’s numbers.
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Tomorrow, October begins with recharged vigor for political changes. The season has come for filing certificates of candidacy (COCs) for next year’s national and local elections.
Duterte and his franchise may be the incumbent, but no leadership is immune to a nation’s yearning to move forward, want better, and seek change. And the stubbornness of this president to reject passing on to better, and instead, salivate for the vice-presidential seat is spelling him more trouble.
His PDP-Laban party is already split in two, essentially over his insistence to run for vice president and apparent tyrannical way of choosing who the party standard-bearer would be. Mr. Duterte’s faction in PDP-Laban is pushing Sen. Bong Go – his right-hand man – to run for president even if the poor guy doesn’t even want a piece of that office.
It’s no accident that 60 percent of Filipinos surveyed by SWS last June don’t think Digong should run for VP in 2022. In his mind, Duterte keeps on singing the same tune because the people at his table keep on clapping; but the entire karaoke bar is sick of listening. His being tone-deaf to what citizens are saying through these surveys set the President and his chances in the elections at a downward spiral. And I guess he’d best keep it that way.
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