Trust in Senate impartiality falling

Since President Estrada’s impeachment trial began last Dec. 7, there has been a marked decline in the number of Metro Manilans who believe the senator-judges will be impartial, a survey firm said yesterday.

Pulse Asia executive director Pia Bennagen said the decline was from 58 percent to 47 percent during the 12-day period up to Dec. 19.

"There has been a noticeable decline in the agreement with the senators’ fairness in judging the impeachment case against the President," she said.

On the other hand, Bennagen noted that disagreement with the proposition has gone up from 16 percent to 27 percent for the same period.

Those who disagreed were tied with those who were undecided about the senator-jurors’ impartiality.

Trust in the impeachment tribunal’s fairness reached its peak at 60 percent during the first days of trial from Dec. 8 to 10, before starting on its downhill trend.

Those who disagreed that the senator-judges would be fair hovered below 20 percent in the first days of trial, before breaching that critical barrier on the 13th.

Those undecided remain practically static between 20 percent and 25 percent.

Meanwhile, more danger signals for the Estrada presidency continue to surface, notably the President’s declining trust ratings and the weakening of support from his traditional mass bases of Classes D and E.

Bennagen noted the trust ratings of the President went down just as that of his chief accuser, Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis Singson’s, went up.

Since start of trial, Mr. Estrada’s rating slipped from 38 percent to 33 percent, while Singson’s improved from 22 percent to 28 percent.

The President is also losing his grip on the lower classes. "What is more noticeable among the members of the poorest class is the declining levels of hard and soft support," said Bennagen.

In Class E, hard support declined five percentage points to 22 percent, while soft support plunged 17 percentage points to zero percent, Pulse Asia said.

Bennagen added that "if one considers the biggest class, Class D, one will see that hard opposition also increased (six percentage points to 18 percent) and soft support has gone down (by five percentage points to 22 percent).

"These changes may indicate some weakening in the President’s traditional bases of support," she said.

The STAR-commissioned survey also said that even with Christmas just around the corner, respondents still perceived juetengate as the most troubling presidential issue (32 percent to 42 percent from the period Dec. 7 to 19).