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Ito is a prominent issue in the latter part of the Arroyo administration and it became even more prominent in the first part of the Aquino administration.

Largely because then, knowing the Aquino basically signaled that this is an issue that they would address.

As I mentioned in the past in some other interviews, you do have that presidential signaling effect.

So when the president impresses upon the public that this is an important issue, people tend to regard it as an important issue.

We saw this in the 30 also when he said illegal drugs is an urgent concern. Suddenly you had a spike in terms of people saying...

He did it as a presidential candidate, right? I remember before him becoming president, biglang out of nowhere nagiging importante itong crime and criminality.

As a candidate pa lang, he was able to do that. That's how powerful it was.

But corruption has always been in the top five. Among governance issues, it is the issue that has remained at least in the top five.

The ones that people feel that the government should immediately address.

It has not stayed in the top three. The top three that we've seen over the past years since 1999.

Basically, material issues, high prices, pay, poverty, jobs.

So they basically switched positions, but inflation has always been number one.

So does it mean that people do not give that much importance to good governance?

I don't really think so. I think to a certain extent, because we've seen this in local surveys that we do,

I think people still think that it's important for government to function.

But that expectation might be really more at the level of the local government.

At the national government, there might be other expectations.

And it really depends on what is given more emphasis by the national administration or the president for that matter.

So we see, for instance, the issue of law and order, right?

Not as important if you look at the surveys right now, when in fact, not long ago, we thought that's the end-all be-all issue.

That's the most important thing, and hence, perhaps, the popularity of former president, right?

I mean, presidential signaling, as you say, is important.

Now, speaking of foreign policy, for instance, one of the things I...

Sorry for being a little bit selfish here, because this is kind of my area.

We always hear that if you look at the list of most urgent issues, sometimes, foreign policy is really low as a kind of an urgent issue.

Nevertheless, also, it looks like whenever something big happens in the West Philippine Sea, like when the islanders are bullied,

there's an explosion of public response, and suddenly, presidents have to care about it.

Because Paul Seych has done a lot of surveys that shows, like what?

Eight out of ten Filipinos want us to take tougher stance in South China Sea.

Many things that Duterte, as a popular president, was going against.

I mean, how do you explain that?

Is it like a cyclically important issue, not consistently urgent, but cyclically important that could still impact policy?

Well, it's important, but relative to the other concerns, it's not as urgent.

So, when you ask people separately what do they think about the West Philippine Sea and our territorial claims,

they will tend to say that it's something that we should fight for.

But when you arrange it against other issues, it's not as urgent.

So, people do see the importance of, let's say, ensuring our territorial integrity.

For example, under this administration, and even in the previous administration, perplexingly,

the administration was getting high approval ratings in defending our territorial integrity.

In Mindanao, I saw the SWL surveys. In Mindanao, you had very high.

Yeah, so that's saying, as I said, it's perplexing, despite the fact that in the previous administration,

it was only late in the administration when basically the president continually invoked the ruling that basically bestowed legitimacy on our claims.

But people feel that it's important, but not as urgent as, let's say, the GATT issues.

Therefore, they have some room for maneuver, maybe, to President Duterte,

and the way his foreign policy was interpreted on the ground, perhaps, is different from what many outside saw, or his critics.

I'm just trying to explain the seeming paradox there.

Now, let's start with the latest survey, because President Marcos Jr., I mean, 65% approval rating,

that's like a golden number in the US democracy or European democracy.

Biden's biggest dream would be to have a 60-70% approval rating.

Nevertheless, it's much lower than all. I think Aquino was around 77% at this point in time in some of the surveys.

Duterte was around 80%.

Are people exaggerating that BBM has to be troubled, or the drop by 15 points is really something special,

including, I think, 29% drop among Class E and 21% or 22% among A, B, C?

So, he's kind of lucky because it held among Class D, who are the biggest proportion, right?

We can debate about the reasons behind.

But it looks pretty significant in at least two out of three demographics, albeit the smaller ones.

How big was that? If you're BBM, should you be worried? I mean, you still have 65% approval.

Yeah, I guess any president should be worried about this one, although 65%.

And I do agree, other leaders in other countries would be happy with it.

But when you suffer a 15-point drop, that's quite significant,

especially since, you know, I think we're coming from a situation that people are not necessarily unfamiliar with.

Inflation has continually increased over the past year.

Maybe people tempered their expectations over the past year, but suddenly, you know, given that there's no end to it,

we'll withdraw the approval, but they shifted more to indecision, Richard, rather than disapproving.

So, that means they're still essentially on a wait-and-see attitude.

Now, whether this will continue to decline is something that we cannot predict.

We'll see it in the next quarterly survey.

But it's the highest decline we've seen for the same period of time compared to previous presidents

because, as you said, Aquino was 72, Duterte was 80.

They started off at 79 and 86, respectively.

So, the decline was not significant if you compare it from where they started off.

Marco started at 84.

He's down to 65.

So, that's a 19-point drop in this case.

And any president should be worried.

And I think he's acting as such, you know, speaking as a political scientist,

because he's been going around distributing rice.

He took out the rice ceiling on rice, believing that the harvest would be sufficient

to stabilize the price of rice, at least in the next quarter.

And I think they'll take every measure necessarily, like Duterte did in September 2018,

when the same issue came up.

The rice price…

His approval went down by double digit then.

I think it was about 11 or something like that.

13 points, but still quite significant.

But it's still 75, Richard.

It's still high.

But, you know, you scamper.

Every time that people will hold or withdraw approval,

people are quite sensitive to it.

Although they say they're not necessarily sensitive to it.

I think political leaders are quite sensitive to it.

Because unless they arrest that decline, they will be facing more challenges.

And in this current environment where you see also some sort of intramurals

among our political leaders, the last thing that you would want to happen

is that your political capital is reduced as evidenced by lower approval or trust ratings.

Yeah, I mean, you're right.

Actually, I remember Duterte twice at least.

One was with the Kian de los Santos.

The other one was when the whole issue of rice tariffication law came in.

But nevertheless, there was a Teflon effect, right?

I mean, I hate to use that term, but just so that it's relatable to people.

He showed tremendous amount of resilience in terms of keeping his numbers in the 70-80,

at some way of the 90 territory.

But that's not the case now, right?

I mean, I would even say even Aquino had a semi-Teflon effect, right?

He still went out with majority approval despite all the, you know,

he bungled the whole mamasapano, the whole lagbala.

So is Marcos Jr. showing less resilience?

Is the honeymoon over?

I mean, what's the proper way of framing it?

Or just to say, it's too early to say.

It's just a short-term signaling or a flash in the pan.

What is your hunch here?

As a political scientist, not the Pulse Asia guy.

Well, current conditions make it a little bit more difficult for him to sustain

the level of approval that he had in the past.

For one, the economy has really been challenged, given all of the external developments.

Structural law.

The other thing that he's confronting right now, as I said,

the internal differences or avoiding it to become a turmoil among members

or factions of his unity.

We see it now.

It's too early for this type of politicking to happen.

But midterm elections is near, right?

I mean, the elections are going to happen now.

But still too early.

People always compare it, let's say, for example,

the time of Neun Norman, the vice president then, Giorgio Binari,

of course, was known to have political ambitions.

But I don't think that Binari made that there was any significant attack on

then vice president Binari until late in that administration.

The midterm was a midterm that was party-less also.

You had Tim Pinoy and the United Nations Alliance.

It might turn out to be the same now.

It's going to be party-less.

It's basically a coalition.

But the conflict within the administration started,

I mean, the problems within the administration started quite early

for an administration that came into power with majority voting support.

Yeah.

You're referring to the Romualdos Arroyo, then the whole…

Even the designation of the executive secretary,

the placement of some of the secretaries,

and then the supposed conflict between the house speaker,

the renewed conflict between the house speaker and the vice president,

allegedly because of the decision of the former to slip the latter

of the confidential intelligence funds.

See, this is the part of you I think people should hear more,

your political analyst side, because you're always the false Asia side.

You're like Superman.

You're always stuck.

So I just wanted people to hear that in terms of your analysis.

Now, the last one.

Let's talk about Sara Duterte, right?

I mean, first of all, my sense is perhaps if the survey was in the second half

of September or…

I mean, I know your cycles, but I'm just saying.

My sense is if it were in the second half of September,

perhaps her numbers would have probably dropped even more.

And my hypothesis is because if you look at the whole confidential issue

controversy, I mean, I'm not saying anything because, you know,

she's presumed innocent.

But concerns with good governance, I think,

really culminated towards the end of September.

So I won't be surprised if her numbers would have dropped more if the survey

was in the second half rather than the first half or middle of September.

But nevertheless, it's also a curious thing that she had 11 points dropped.

I mean, she's not the president.

She's not the Department of Agriculture secretary.

Both of those are Marcus Jr., of course, right?

And yet, she's still seeing that drop, right?

And I would have expected her to be actually more resilient because

there's supposed to be solid south vizmin vote.

And we saw some drop even in Mindanao numbers,

something like 95 to 87, 86, something like that.

What's going on with the SARA situation?

What is your political analysis there?

It's really a drop in two different areas,

in the national capital region and the balance of the zone,

where I think the public, basically,

is withholding support from the national government.

The decline she suffered in the Visayas and Mindanao are still within

the margin of error from survey to survey.

So it's a marginal decline,

although it's a drop of nine points, I think, in Mindanao.

But it's not so significant relative to the decline

across all areas of the president.

And you're correct.

But if the survey was done towards the latter part of the month,

where there was really much more news about, let's say,

the transfer of funds to her in 2022,

and how she spent those funds in 11 days,

the questions being raised by people from various political funds,

maybe it would have an impact separately from the impact of,

let's say, inflation on the performance rating of top officials.

Or maybe BBM's number would have been slightly better

because, you know, as important as the...

Because he also had big drops at ABC, right?

21% or 22%, right?

And my sense is...

22%.

22%, right? 22%.

So my sense is probably BBM would have done slightly better.

Maybe the numbers would have closed at 13%.

I mean, it's very speculative,

but I'm looking at news cycles and the emotionality of the moment

and public discontent.

I think confidential issue was far bigger issue towards the end,

especially for...

But remember, if opponents of BBM were to raise that same issue,

Ken raised actually the same issue to him

because the transfer came from the office of the president.

The transfer is, from the words of one of the minority leaders,

illegal and even unconstitutional.

It's almost similar to what we...

Yeah, yeah.

The assertions before about the disbursement acceleration program

under Noyon Ayokina, right?

Disbursement in the Supreme Court, yeah.

You cannot transfer to items that are not existent

in the budgets of other agencies.

And in this case,

the claim is that there was no budget for CIF

under the former vice president.

So therefore, how can you transfer funds

to the budget of the incumbent vice president?

So the president could be held accountable also.

Fairway.

If his opponents would raise it.

Fortunately for them,

it was not as deliberated yet when we did the survey.

Let's see whether this will still be salient as a political issue

come the fourth quarter survey.

Ronald, thank you so much.

Ronald, thank you so much for this very comprehensive interview.

I really juiced you up both as the false Asia chief

and at the same time as a fellow political scientist

and long-time colleague.

Maraming salamat, Ronald.

Thank you.

I hope I can disturb you in the next quarters.

I know you're super in demand,

but I think people want really in-depth analysis

in like two to three minutes quotable quotes.

I hope people will look forward to all sorts of discussions.

I really appreciate your analysis, Ronnie.

And mabuhay ka.

More power to you.

Is there anything you want to say?

Is there any parting words or something?

No, no, no.

Keep well, Richard.

Okay, mabuhay ka, Ronald.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Have a good day.

God bless.