44% Filipinos say PRRD ‘sincere’ in seeking Robredo’s help: SWS

FILE: Vice President Leni Robredo pays courtesy call on President Rodrigo R. Duterte at the Malacañan Palace, afternoon of July 4, 2016. (KING RODRIGUEZ/ Malacañang Photo Bureau)

MANILA — Many Filipinos are still convinced that President Rodrigo Duterte showed sincerity in tapping Vice President Leni Robredo as Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) co-chair to improve the fight against illegal drugs, the latest survey by pollster Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.

The SWS poll, fielded from Dec. 13 to 16 last year, revealed that 44 percent of Filipinos believed Duterte was “sincere” in appointing Robredo as ICAD co-chair.

Sixteen percent of the 44 percent said Duterte was “definitely sincere,” while the remaining 28 percent said the President was “somewhat sincere.”

Only 27 percent gave a dissenting opinion, with 15 percent of them thinking that the Chief Executive was “somewhat insincere” and the other 12 percent saying he was “definitely insincere.”

Twenty-nine percent could not give an exact answer, the pollster noted.

The respondents were asked: “In your opinion, is President Duterte… (Definitely sincere; Somewhat sincere; Undecided if sincere or not; Somewhat insincere; Definitely insincere) in appointing Vice President Leni Robredo as Co-Chairperson of ICAD?”

On Oct. 31, 2019, Duterte picked Robredo as co-chair of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Director General Aaron Aquino at ICAD.

Duterte appointed Robredo as drug czar following the latter’s claim that the anti-narcotics campaign is “absolutely not working.” He also took the opportunity to let the Vice President help the government in curbing the drug proliferation in the country.

But 18 days after her appointment as ICAD co-chair, she was removed from office due to alleged “missteps” such as meeting with foreign personalities and groups that have prejudged the drug war and her supposed failure to present new measures aimed at putting an end to the drug menace.

The same survey released by SWS bared that 56 percent of the respondents are aware of Robredo’s removal from the ICAD, while only 43 percent learned about it only during the conduct of the poll.

SWS said the December poll also found that 49 percent agreed that Duterte’s move to fire Robredo was an admission that the drug war is “failing” while 21 percent disagreed and the remaining 31 percent were ambivalent on the matter.

The SWS survey further revealed that 60 percent agreed that Robredo had the right to see the list of high-value targets when she was still the ICAD co-chair.

Only 15 percent said otherwise, while the remaining 25 percent were undecided.

Net agreement on Robredo’s supposed right to see the list of high-value targets was at “very strong”+45, SWS said.

The poll also noted that 44 percent were “satisfied” with Robredo’s performance as co-chair of ICAD, 26 percent were “dissatisfied,” and the remaining 31 percent could not make a decision.

This gave a net satisfaction score of “moderate” +18 with regard to Robredo’s achievements during his brief stint at the anti-drug body.

Responding to the SWS’s poll results, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo lamented that the 44 percent who expressed satisfaction over Robredo’s performance were swayed by the Vice President’s incessant, unrelenting attacks” against Duterte’s drug war.

“Four out of 10? Siguro ‘yung four out 10, ‘yung anim kontra? Siguro ‘yung four, ‘yun ang napaniwala doon sa mga (Six of 10 opposed the Vice President. The four out of 10 people, meantime, believed to the) incessant, unrelenting attacks against the drug war of the President,” he told Palace reporters.

“But as I have pointed out earlier, this is contradicted by the people’s satisfaction of how he is handling the drug war,” the Palace official added.

Panelo maintained that Duterte had given Robredo the “rare” opportunity to help the government in its fight against illegal drugs.

However, the Vice President failed to contribute to the current administration’s successful campaign against rampant narcotics trade, he stressed.

“She was being given the rare chance of introducing other skills that will improve in the campaign against illegal drugs. And she blew it,” Panelo said.

In an exclusive interview with ABS-CBN aired last week, the President said Robredo failed to see a “good” picture of the government’s relentless crackdown on illegal drugs because she only had a short stint at ICAD.

SWS interviewed 1,200 adult Filipinos using sampling error margins of ±3 percentage points for national percentages, and ±6 percentage points each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.