Failure is Bad News

Here's bad news for the administration as President Aquino is all set to deliver his last State-of-the-Nation-Address before Congress on Monday, July 27.

Forty-six percent of Filipinos believe Aquino has failed in fulfilling his campaign promise of curbing corruption in government during his term.

The survey, conducted by Radio Veritas between March to April 2015, showed only 13 percent of Filipinos think Aquino succeeded in fighting corruption in the government.

More than four in 10 Filipinos, or 41 percent, however, are uncertain whether the Aquino administration's anti-corruption programs were effective.

The poll, called the Veritas Truth Survey, was conducted using face-to-face interviews with 1,200 respondents randomly chosen nationwide.

Among the three branches of government, Congress is perceived by Filipinos to be the most corrupt: the Senate with 49 percent, the House with 48 percent.

Cabinet officials are perceived to be corrupt by 41 percent of respondents while the judiciary was seen as corrupt by 40 percent.

In fifth place is the Office of the Vice President, which was perceived as corrupt by 38 percent of respondents.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr., however, disputes the findings of the Veritas survey and cites a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showing that 42 percent of Filipinos were satisfied with Aquino’s efforts to eradicate corruption.

Besides this, he said, the Philippines also improved in ranking in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index last year.

Note, however, that Malacañang's defense of "daang matuwid" is no defense at all as the Veritas survey result merely echoes or validates what the SWS survey found out. 

If nearly half of all Filipinos believe the Aquino's administration's "daang matuwid" is a sham, then that means bad news as well for whoever will be endorsed by the President as the ruling coalition's standard bearer in 2016. –End-

Image by: www.kapatiranparty.org