The plunge in President Marcos’ satisfaction rating in the first quarter was expected.
People warned about it as the public raged helplessly against surging fuel prices after the Middle East war erupted on Feb. 28. The explanation that the circumstances were beyond the control of the Marcos administration didn’t wash.
From the start, there were calls to do more to soften the fuel price leaps at the pumps, and to cut fuel taxes – both the excise and the larger 12 percent expanded value-added tax.
The government finally did something to regulate the greed at the pumps, but only two months later – by announcing the reasonable fuel price increases that the public could expect.
As for the tax adjustments, Congress passed the urgent legislation granting BBM the special power to do it, but it was a big dud.
Public hopes for relief were dashed at around the time that the non-commissioned Social Weather Stations survey was taken (March 24-31), a month into the Middle East war, and at the peak of the fuel price surges.
Not surprisingly, BBM’s net satisfaction rating skidded to a record low of -15, a plunge from the -3 in November. He might yet overtake Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s record -53 net rating in the SWS survey in March 2010, in the final months of her presidency. It made GMA the most unpopular president post-EDSA, and rendered her endorsement for the 2010 race into a kiss of death.
As in his “mahiya naman kayo” anti-corruption campaign, BBM overpromised and underdelivered in responding to the “national energy emergency.”
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All the ayuda his government could scrape together for the transport and agriculture sectors could not make up for the image of miserliness that was projected by his refusal to suspend or even reduce excise taxes on diesel, gasoline and cooking gas in the early weeks of the Iran war when the amount of any tax break would have mattered.
BBM then heeded the advice of his economic team plus his executive secretary and EVAT champion, to never let go of the government’s multibillion-peso windfall from the fuel taxes, brushing aside calls from even the country’s largest business group, which warned of the impact on inflation of soaring fuel prices.
Sure enough, inflation jumped to 7.2 percent in April from 4.1 percent in March. For May, economists are projecting a high of over 8 percent.
BBM’s allies in Congress at least went through the motions of passing forthwith the law empowering him to suspend or reduce the fuel excise tax. With extreme reluctance, he approved the cut – but only for kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas.
Mass transport drivers, who use diesel for their livelihoods, were instead made to line up for hours, outdoors in the pounding summer heat, with no seats provided, for a dole-out of P5,000 each.
Not surprisingly, in the absence of a fully operational national identification system, the rollout of the fuel subsidy was chaotic.
On April 18, a motorcycle taxi rider collapsed and died while waiting in a long line in the heat at the Quezon City Memorial Circle for the P5,000 fuel subsidy from the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Surely “death by ayuda” was not the meme that the government had in mind in its dole-out in lieu of a fuel tax cut.
Now that fuel prices have started settling down, people are crediting positive developments in the Middle East rather than anything that the government has done.
The ayuda fueled resentment, not gratitude.
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Vice President Sara Duterte, kicked out of the governance loop, didn’t get tainted by the fumbling responses to the fuel crisis. She simply coasted along, making travel to The Hague like a stroll to the neighborhood sari-sari store, and she retained her satisfaction ratings.
Significantly, the ratings did not see any positive bump from her announcement in mid-February that she was definitely running for president in 2028. It also failed in its perceived objective of spooking congressmen sufficiently to prevent her impeachment by the House of Representatives. Instead the House plenary vote was an overwhelming 257 against her.
The numbers, of course, might be on her side at the Senate, especially if her family’s chief bodyguard Ronald dela Rosa pops up again to vote in person with the current majority.
Fortunately for BBM, public outrage against what passes for a Senate these days, plus the sordid details that are expected to come out in the impeachment trial, might yet save him from overtaking GMA’s worst-ever performance ratings.
BBM still has 33 percent satisfied with his performance, although this is down from 40 percent in November while those dissatisfied went up to 49 percent from the previous 40.
That’s still way below VP Sara’s 54 percent satisfaction rating, with only 25 percent dissatisfied.
Survey numbers, of course, can change, sometimes dramatically.
With the fuel crisis easing and inflation slowing down slightly, national attention returned to the unresolved budget and flood control mess. But this has been eclipsed by the ongoing apocalypse at the Senate.
Five months after Christmas, the Office of the Ombudsman has finally started filing cases before the Sandiganbayan against several big fish implicated in the corruption scandal.
Some of those implicated, led by accused plunderer Jinggoy Estrada, are now members of the reconstituted Blue Ribbon committee, which will resume the corruption probe. Only in the Philippine Senate!
Now led by the Drama Queen, the Blue Ribbon is expected to go after those suspected to have been spared by the previous panel, among them former speaker Martin Romualdez and BBM’s son, Ilocos Norte Rep. Sandro Marcos.
These two warring camps truly deserve each other.
The new majority also intends to summon the heads of law enforcement agencies, to insist that the Senate came under attack when its sergeant-at-arms and Cayetano private army chief Mao Aplasca and his men sprayed the chamber with gunfire to help his mistah Bato dela Rosa escape arrest.
Considering the issues and personalities involved, BBM might do a Duterte and invoke executive privilege for his security officials.
Satisfaction ratings of the Senate under Cayetano are much awaited. BBM’s numbers might yet recover from the continuing Senate horror show.