‘Leni’s trust rating declines in Q1’

Vice President Leni Robredo suffered a 13-point decline in her net trust rating in the first quarter of 2018 and further lost votes in the ongoing manual recount of the Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).

Based on the Social Weather Stations (SWS)’s March 23 to 27 survey released yesterday, 58 percent of adult Filipinos expressed “much trust” in Robredo while 18 percent expressed “little trust” in her, resulting in a net trust score of +39, classified by SWS as “good.”

The remaining 23 percent of Filipinos were undecided.

The survey used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults 18 and above nationwide.

The Vice President’s latest net trust score was down by one grade from very good +52 (66 percent much trust, 14 percent little trust) net trust rating she obtained in December last year.

Her net trust rating was a moderate +29 when SWS first surveyed it in December 2015.

Losing votes

As this developed, an insider revealed that Robredo’s lead over her closest rival in the 2016 vice presidential elections, former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was reduced by over 21,000 votes as of yesterday after four weeks of the revision of votes.

This means the margin of votes between Robredo and Marcos of 263,473 in the official tally during the canvassing has been cut to about 242,000, according to the source, who requested anonymity for lack of authority to speak for the tribunal and due to the gag order issued on the case.

Apart from the 50-percent threshold applied by the tribunal for the recount that initially cost Robredo over 5,000 votes, the significant deduction in her lead was attributed to “other votes deemed not acceptable under PET rules.”

The PET denied the plea of Robredo for the 25-percent threshold to be applied in the ongoing manual and instead set the threshold at 50 percent.

The Vice President appealed the ruling and the tribunal sought comments from Marcos and the Commission on Elections.

The PET recount, which started last April 2, has so far covered only one-sixth of the total precincts in the three pilot provinces so far after one month of the manual recount.