GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 20 December) – Results of a recent survey showing Vice President Sara Duterte having the highest trust rating among top national government officials are being magnified on social media (socmed), especially by supporters egging her to run in the 2028 presidential race.
Publicus Asia, Inc. released its PAHAYAG 2023 End of the Year nationwide survey on Friday, December 15. It was conducted from November 29 to December 4, 2023. The survey involved 1,500 respondents randomly drawn from the market research panel of over 200,000 Filipinos maintained by the Singapore office of PureSpectrum, a US-based panel marketplace with multinational presence. The sample was restricted to registered Filipino voters. Publicus said it was a “non-commissioned survey.”
Among the first media outlets that published the Publicus survey on the day that it was released were The Manila Bulletin and the Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI). The Bulletin article, titled “President Marcos’ approval rating improves slightly; VP Duterte’s score continues to fall — survey,” was published at 2:12 p.m. SMNI News Channel’s article titled “VP Sara Duterte, nakakuha ng pinakamataas na trust rating sa Top 5 Officials ng bansa – Publicus Asia” (VP Sara Duterte gets the highest trust rating among the five top officials of the country – Publicus Asia) had no timestamp.
The SMNI angle was amplified by pro-Duterte supporters on Facebook and YouTube hours after Publicus made the survey public.
On Facebook, NewsBlast flashed the “Duterte high trust rating” news at 17:45 (5:45 p.m.) December 15. NewsBlast is an unverified Facebook account which was created on September 23, 2023, with a link directing to SMNI News Channel. It described itself as a news and media page with 63k followers.
A few hours later, pro-Duterte Facebook page MindaVote posted at 21:51 ( 9:51 p.m.) December 15 the SMNI socmed card with the caption: “Nangunguna si VP Sara Duterte sa Top 5 Officials ng pamahalaan na nakakuha ng mataas na trust rating batay sa pinakahuling Pahayag survey ng Publicus Asia,” a slight revision of the SMNI News Channel report. MindaVote, which claims to be a media company based in Davao City, has 585k followers. As of 10:49 a.m. Tuesday, the post generated 1k reactions, 135 comments and 72 shares.
Facebook user Marlene Amora shared the MindaVote post to five different groups namely “Support Jeffrey “Ka Eric Celiz” Sambayan (19.8k members), Sara ALL (5k members), Duterte Kilusang Pagbabago United Arab Emirates Int’l Group (6.8k members), Kaabag sa ABAKA (Mindanao) (539 members), and “Pilipinas “Tapang at Malasakit ng Hugpung Pagbabago .. Abaka (350 members). The account shared it four times at the same time of 00:13 and at 02:04 December 16, or two hours after MindaVote amplified the SMNI report.
At YouTube, Badong’ Aratiles Vlogs posted a video captioned “VP Sara pinakamataas sa trust and approval rating sa latest Publicus Asia Survey Martin Kulelat (VP Sara gains highest trust and approval rating in latest Publicus Asia survey, [House Speaker] Martin [Romualdez] at the bottom).
While Duterte gained the highest trust rating (53%) among the top national government officials, the pro-Duterte social media users did not indicate that it was a decline from her third quarter performance (55%).
Also, while she had the highest approval rating (59%) among the top government executives, the amplified social media posts again failed to say that it was a drop from the previous quarter’s performance (62%)
Supporters of Duterte have been egging her to run for president, following in the footsteps of her father, immediate former President Rodrigo Duterte.
The survey showing Duterte the most trusted top government leader also appeared at the Facebook page Sara Z Duterte Carpio for President, with user Jose Enrico V. Libunao, who has 29k followers, saying: “Partida, si Tamby araw-araw ang exposure sa media at sumasawsaw pa sa mga issues. Si Inday naman, araw-araw binabanatan pero namamayagpag pa rin.” (Tamby has the edge with everyday exposure to the media and talking on many issues. Inday on the other hand, is criticized everyday but she’s still flying high.)
Patunay na galit ang mga tao sa EPAL.” (A proof that people are angry at attention grabber.)
Tamby means “Tambaloslos” (do no good), whom Duterte supporters refer to Romualdez, who is allegedly posturing to run in the 2028 presidential elections.
Facebook page DT, which has 956k followers, posted the MindaVote content at 21:52 December 15, a minute after the latter posted it.
The same content appeared at Facebook page Daily Duterte, which has 396k followers, at 21:53 December 15.
The MindaVote, DT and Daily Duterte Facebook pages shared the same content one minute apart from each other.
At 00:06 December 16, a socmed card with the message “Inday Sara Magiging Presidente – Digong” was posted by Facebook user Athena Yohan at SOLID BBM @SARAH DUTERTE / PRO GOVERNMENT AKO; bawal ang dilawan, which has 23.3k members.
Duterte earlier expressed solidarity with SMNI hosts Loraine Badoy and Jeffrey Celiz, who are known for red-tagging or branding certain personalities as communists, after they were held in contempt by the House of Representatives. They have been released already.
The House conducted a hearing after Celiz claimed that Romualdez spent at least P1.8 billion in travel this year. Some House members had moved for the suspension of SMNI operations for alleged dissemination of false information.
Duterte and Romualdez, a cousin of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., have been touted as among the strong potential contenders in the next presidential elections in 2028.
Duterte and Romualdez have so far denied they will be running in the 2028 presidential elections. (Bong S. Sarmiento / MindaNews)
(This alert was produced with support from an Internews initiative aiming to build the capacity of news organizations to understand and monitor disinformation and influence operations in the Philippines.)
