Escudero gets highest trust rating among gov't officials

Neophyte Sen. Francis Escudero garnered the highest trust rating among all public officials surveyed by Pulse Asia in its Ulat ng Bayan survey for July 1-14.

Escudero topped with a 75 percent trust rating among the country’s public officials – President Arroyo, Vice President Noli de Castro, Senate President Manuel Villar, all incumbent senators, Speaker Prospero Nograles, Cabinet members, former President Joseph Estrada and selected public figures.

Escudero was followed by Sen. Loren Legarda with 71 percent, and Sen. Manuel Roxas II, 69 percent.

Mrs. Arroyo garnered a trust rating of 19 percent; De Castro, 53 percent; Villar, 65 percent; Nograles, 22 percent; and Estrada, 44 percent.

Meanwhile, the Pulse Asia survey also showed that Escudero continues to register a very high approval rating across the country, 79 percent vs 77 percent in March 2008.

Of the 23 members of the Senate included in the same survey, Escudero has an approval rating much higher than the mean (56 percent) and median (53 percent) approval scores recorded for all senators.

Escudero was closely followed by Legarda with a 78 percent approval rating, while Roxas emerged third with 74 percent.

The survey report was based on a multi-stage probability sample of 1,200 representative adults aged 18 and above.

The survey has a plus or minus three percent error margin at the 95 percent confidence level.

In the period prior to the survey, the news headlines focused on developments having to do with the increasing demand for National Food Authority rice across the country, the granting of subsidies to the Filipino poor particularly through the administration’s Katas ng VAT program, the signing into law of the cheaper medicine and tax exemption bills, the President’s call for review of power rates being charged by the Manila Electric Co., several natural disasters in the country and the world, worsening global food crisis, the continuing increase in oil and food prices, the depreciation of the local currency, and sustained calls for further wage increase and fare hikes.