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Malacañang should not have been too touchy about a recent Pulse
Asia survey, which alleged that the current administration has
surpassed its predecessors in terms of corruption.
President Arroyo’s advisers should have
treated the survey as no more than a logical episode in the flurry
of political controversies hurled at the Palace—and a PR tool to
drive home the key messages of those issues.
Never mind that the survey was commissioned by
former Sen. Sergio Osmeña 3rd, erstwhile campaign manager of the
opposition’s senatorial slate in the last midterm elections. Osmeña
is not just a politician but also a savvy business manager who
believes in measuring performance and market response. The survey
served those purposes.
The Palace should not have been surprised that
the survey elicited responses unfavorable to it. The poll came on
the heels of a series of scandals, starting with the reappearance of
former Air Force Sgt. Vidal Doble and capped by the Manila Peninsula
caper sparked by Sen. Antonio Trillanes 4th. Those incidents were
played up in media. The respondents’ predominantly negative
responses were, therefore, inevitable.
Visceral response
What needs to be understood is that the survey
responses were high emotional in nature. The controversies that
triggered them were highly emotional too. The survey, in effect,
merely measured visceral rather than rational or thinking responses.
The negative emotional responses, of course, were tailor-made for
front-page treatment.
Without belittling the Osmeña-commissioned
survey, the point still has to be made that the responses it
generated were almost entirely gut level. Had it aimed for more
rational responses, the survey would have in all likelihood produced
entirely different results.
A rational evaluation would show that the
controversies—which for some reason all cropped up in the second
semester of 2007—failed to lead to a definite conclusion. Attempts
to investigate them and implicate Mrs. Arroyo fell short of their
goal.
In contrast, at least two of her predecessors
were found by competent courts of law—and not just the court of
public opinion—to have engaged in self-aggrandizement while in
office. Yet another is suspected of having misused the people’s
money in white elephants.
The claim that the Arroyo administration is more
corrupt than, say, the Marcos regime swept under the rug the
documented excesses committed during the nation’s martial-law
nightmare—of which Osmeña himself was one of the more prominent
victims.
Young respondents
It must be pointed out also that many—if not,
most—of the respondents to the Osmeña-commissioned survey were
not yet adults during the presidencies of Mrs. Arroyo’s
predecessors.
For sure, many of them were not yet born when
Ferdinand E. Marcos literally lorded it over the country. Thus, they
neither recall nor were aware of the issues raised against past
presidents. They only have the incumbent to make as the target of
their indignation.
The survey was also conducted amid a highly
volatile atmosphere. It so happened that the current president is
the one at the center of the political maelstrom—and not the
former chief executives. As such, she alone could be the object of
emotional upheavals.
It is also the rational view that, as in the
many legislative inquiries, the public perception of the incumbent
has largely been shaped by innuendoes rather than facts.
Information—not just perception—on the
corrupt acts of past presidents caused tens of thousands of
Filipinos to take to the streets in protest or to go underground and
wage revolution. Obviously, they were holding on to real evidence of
wrongdoing. They moved on the basis of facts rather than emotion.
More questions
Osmeña could have optimized his investment in
the Pulse Asia survey had he made the pollster pose several rational
questions to the respondents.
Did the political controversies improve the
standing or enhance the image of the opposition? Did the Manila Pen
incident strengthen the faith of the Filipino on personalities
critical of and opposed to the current administration? Did the
controversies make opposition personalities stand out as the saviors
of the people?
There is one important issue that the survey
could have helped us understand, but failed to do: why is it that
amid allegations of corruption, 2007 turned out to be a banner year
for the economy?
In the past, corruption at the highest levels of
government often coincided with economic decline. That was not true
for 2007.
The emotional responses elicited by the Osmeña-commissioned
survey might indicate that life is as hard as ever for Filipinos.
However, facts show that the economy is performing well despite the
political controversies and global challenges.
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