Palace blames low GMA ratings on terror threats

Malacañang blamed yesterday President Arroyo’s low public satisfaction rating on the terrorist scare that erupted during the survey period from Nov. 15 to Dec. 2 when the Social Weather Stations (SWS) undertook its latest quarterly opinion poll.

Palace spin doctors, led by Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao and Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, said the latest SWS survey validated the results of another survey for the same quarter done by Pulse Asia Inc., which showed that Filipinos were primarily concerned with peace and order problems at that time.

"We take those things seriously. It’s a reminder that the administration has to work harder and take care of certain aspects of problems that we must give more focus on or to explain these issues better," Tiglao said.

He noted that SWS survey findings showed that most of the respondents feared the impact on the Philippines of an imminent war in the Middle East due to renewed tensions between the US and Iraq, which occurred during the survey period.

The situation, Tiglao said, took a turn for the worse when the Australian and Canadian embassies in the Philippines closed down their offices in Makati City due to a "leak" of raw and unverified intelligence information traced to Western Police District intelligence chief Superintendent George Gaddi, who was subsequently relieved from his post.

Bunye acknowledged that security has been a concern, but stressed that reports of terrorist cells operating in the country were exaggerated. He said the government has "corrected" such perceptions.

"It is true that there had been worries about these (terrorist) activities which have been proven to be exaggerated," Bunye said. "The President is really going all-out in her campaign to root out terrorism" on both military and economic fronts, he said.

He blamed the intelligence leak, which led to the temporary closure of these embassies as well as the European Commission office, for the fall in the President’s net public satisfaction rating. The Canadian and Australian embassies have said, however, that they were satisfied with additional security measures and that the embassies would open soon.