Palace prefers to see silver lining

While many people saw President Arroyo’s approval rating going down in the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, Malacañang insists it actually went up.

In its latest quarterly survey, conducted from Aug. 24 to Sept. 8, SWS said Mrs. Arroyo got a net approval rating of 18 percent.

This was "below the fairly good" net approval rating of 28 percent the President got in its Aug. 6-9 survey conducted shortly after Mrs. Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) in late July, the SWS said.

However, Malacañang prefers to compare the survey results on a quarterly basis.

Mrs. Arroyo’s "net satisfaction rating rose to 18 percent in the third quarter of this year, up from last quarter’s four percent rating, according to the latest (SWS) survey," a one-page statement from the Presidential News Desk, an arm of the Office of the Press Secretary, said.

The second quarter rating was taken from May 17 to June 3, before the SONA.

"The survey jibes with the results of similar polls of a steady satisfaction rating for the President," it added, pointing out that the SWS noted that Mrs. Arroyo’s latest approval rating was "back to the usual moderate level."