PCOO to create provincial network of spokespersons

MANILA, Philippines — The Presidential Communications Operations Office will form a network of spokespersons to ensure that Filipinos in the provinces will be aware of the messages of President Rodrigo Duterte, whose trust and satisfaction ratings dropped significantly in the latest Social Weather Stations poll.

 

PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar said his agency would form the provincial communications officers’ network and would name one information officer per town to ensure that the president’s messages are relayed in all areas.

 

“When it comes to the provinces, we launch this Provincial Communications Officer’s network in the entire Philippines. We have reached 12 provinces starting midyear this year. And in every municipality, we are establishing one information officer because not all towns have PIO (public information officer),” Andanar told radio station dwIZ last Saturday.

 

“We reached out to DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government)… we’re really going around aggressively throughout the country,” he added.

 

Andanar said the creation of the network is part of the efforts to strengthen the Philippine Information Agency, which is mandated to spread information about government programs, projects and services to the public.

 

READ: Duterte ratings drop faster than average? Palace says 'many ways' of analyzing poll

 

He said a similar network was tapped during the time of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo but has since become inactive.

 

“Now, we are reviving it. We are asking the help of DILG to write the department order to all municipalities and oblige them to have information officers,” Andanar said.

 

Andanar announced plans to form a provincial communications officers’ network a week after SWS released a poll suggesting that Duterte’s survey ratings dropped sharply last September.

 

The president’s net satisfaction and trust ratings saw double-digit drops in the third quarter as his anti-drug campaign faced intense scrutiny over the deaths of teenagers believed to have been executed by law enforcers. The President’s net satisfaction rating went down to +48 from +66 in June while his trust rating plunged to +60 from +75, according to a nationwide SWS poll conducted from September 23 to 27.  

 

READ: Commentary: Changing tides in the Dutertismo phenomenon

 

Duterte fared better in the latest Pulse Asia poll, which suggested that eight in every ten Filipinos or 80 percent trust him and approve of his performance.

 

Andanar said the government is taking both surveys seriously.

 

“These surveys serve as guides of the government to improve (its performance). We are not discounting any resurgence. It does not mean that we will not read them just because the scores are low,” Andanar said.

 

Duterte has said that the results of opinion polls do not matter to him anymore.

 

“I am not hungry for statistics. I’m done with that. The 16 million (people who voted for me), that is my statistics,” he said in an interview aired over state-run television station PTV 4 last Friday.