Though she’s still in the negative, Mrs. Arroyo’s net trust rating improved from -33 percent in July to -24 percent this month, according to an independent telephone survey of Metro Manila residents by pollster Social Weather Stations (SWS).
Twenty-two percent of 565 survey respondents told the August 2-4 poll that they trust Mrs. Arroyo while 46 percent said otherwise. Thirty-one percent were undecided.
In the SWS’ July 12-14 survey, 18 percent said they still had trust in Mrs. Arroyo while 51 percent said they were distrustful. Twenty-nine percent were undecided.
While most in the National Capital Region still believe she should undergo an impeachment process, the number of people who say she should resign because of poll fraud allegations has declined slightly.
In the latest SWS poll, the number of people in favor of the opposition’s call for Mrs. Arroyo to resign over the election cheating allegations slightly declined to 53 percent, as opposed to 59 percent in July.
On the other hand, those who believe Mrs. Arroyo should not resign grew from 31 percent in July to 37 percent in the new survey.
The number of Metro Manila residents who believe Mrs. Arroyo should undergo impeachment was at a steady 80 percent, minimally down from the 81 percent in the July poll.
Meanwhile, opinions in Metro Manila on Vice President Noli de Castro’s capability to run the country in case of an Arroyo resignation or impeachment are split, according to the SWS, with 42 percent saying he is capable and 39 percent he is not.
In the July survey, 45 percent said the former television and radio news anchor he is capable and 36 percent believed otherwise.
The SWS poll has a four-percent margin of error and a 95-percent confidence level.
After several weeks of public pummeling over the accusations, Mrs. Arroyo broke her silence and went on a media offensive late last month to deny opposition allegations that she cheated her way to victory in last year’s presidential elections.
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye declined to comment on the latest survey by SWS. "I might be contradicting myself because I had unfavorable comments on the Metro Manila survey when I said in the past that Metro Manila is not the entire Philippines," he told The STAR.
Bunye maintained, though, that Mrs. Arroyo’s string of free-ranging media interviews and appearances over the past few days were not part of a media offensive aimed at blunting opposition accusations.
"We don’t call it a media offensive. President Arroyo is only trying to explain the issues, especially her favorite advocacy now, which is Charter change," he said, referring to Mrs. Arroyo’s call for amendments to the Constitution to change the country’s form of government from the current US-style presidential system to a federal parliamentary setup.
However, the latest SWS survey also found that Mrs. Arroyo and others hoping to persuade the public to accept Charter change may have their work cut out for them.
Only 22 percent of respondents said they know enough about how the parliamentary system works and the survey further found them to be evenly split with 10 percent believing it can work in the Philippines and 10 percent believing it would not while two percent were undecided on the issue.
Mrs. Arroyo lamented in a series of press interviews that she was being subjected to trial by publicity over charges that she rigged last year’s election and that her family took bribes from illegal gambling syndicates.
However, one Malacañang press briefing backfired when Mrs. Arroyo met with selected local reporters in what many say was a staged media event because foreign journalists who had not been invited were asked to leave.
She brushed aside opposition accusations that her Charter change proposal was intended to divert attention from the political crisis hounding her, saying debate on the Constitution was "more constructive than the political noise emanating from the media-lynching and trial by publicity" against her.
Mrs. Arroyo has admitted phoning an election official during the May 2004 vote count but denies rigging the results. She has rejected calls for her resignation but has welcomed an impeachment challenge to clear her name.
Opposition lawmakers filed an impeachment complaint in the House of Representatives last month but it fell short of the required number of endorsers to automatically send it to the Senate for trial.
The House committee on justice will begin deliberations on the complaint this week to determine if it should be endorsed to the full House for debate or junked outright.
The opposition had previously shunned the impeachment approach, anticipating Arroyo allies — who have majority control over the House — would block it.
They changed tactics and filed the complaint after failing to muster massive street protests to oust Mrs. Arroyo, the same way Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada — Mrs. Arroyo’s predecessor — were ousted by "people power" uprisings in 1986 and 2002 respectively.
Former President Fidel Ramos suggested amending the Constitution by a constituent assembly and changing the country’s form of government to minimize political bickering shortly after the political crisis broke.
He said it would also give Mrs. Arroyo a "graceful exit" amid opposition-led calls for her resignation.
In her State of the Nation Address last month, Mrs. Arroyo signaled the start of "the great debate on charter change" and called on Congress to consider rewriting the Constitution and changing the country’s form of government.
Such a move, she said, would fuse the legislative and executive branches of government and help stop gridlock caused by quarrels between the president and the bicameral Congress and allow government to be more efficient and responsive to the public.