supporters abandon Jejomar Binay in mass exodus

there is no other way to describe what has been happening to presidentiable Jejomar Binay and his presidential campaign – his supporters are abandoning him in what can only be called a mass exodus. this is the PDI headline from the most recent survey from Pulse Asia:

this is a survey from Pulse Asia on the performance and trust rating of Binay as vice-president. this survey asks the performance and trust ratings of the top officials in the government from the president to the speaker of the house and senate to the chief justice. this is different from the election surveys that Pulse Asia (and SWS) have been conducting.

this survey asks respondents of their sentiments in the way Binay is performing his job as vice-president. people will be responding to that question based on what they think a vice president should be doing. Binay’s run for the president is not mentioned in the question that is being asked here.

the results were devastating for Binay – he took a free fall on trust and performance to his lowest level in the process losing a whopping-15% points from 58% to 43% of his approval rating on his performance of his job.

equally devastating is his trust ratings also nose dived by losing-18% points from 57% to 39%.

source : Philippine Daily Inquirer http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/727269/pulse-asia-binay-ratings-dive

those are very dramatic losses that will make any candidate or even a pollster shudder in fear. this means that on this aspect of Binay’s political life, people are very disappointed with him and that he is being abandoned by his supporters. the vice-president position is a very easy position to fulfill – because of the nature of the job, there are very little things to do unlike say the president or even the cabinet secretaries. because of the ease, the vice president in most surveys typically gets a much higher performance and trust rating than the president.

for Jejomar Binay to get a lower rating than Aquino in this survey says a lot about the huge disappointment that people have on Binay.

in a newspaper report, Binay questions the credibility of this survey by saying he has already resigned his cabinet posts when the survey was conducted, wondering what it was the respondents were rating him for his performance and trust.

Binay is mistaken and raises an irrelevant issue – the survey had asked the respondents on his performance and trust as vice president of the country, not as any of the cabinet post he has occupied and resigned from. respondents are measuring him on the basis of what the respondents think is the job and function of the vice president. as vice-president of the country, the respondents have seen his performance and trust dramatically drop.

in recent surveys released previous to this, Binay’s ratings have shown his declining ratings continue to drop. not only that, his ranking has changed from a high 2nd to either being tied by Roxas at 2nd or falling to 3rd/4th position. the ratings of mar roxas, the LP and admin standard bearer has seen his ratings surge up both in terms of numbers and position where he used to be a far 4th to now a tie at 2nd (posted here in this blog).

the questions asked of the respondents here were point blank – who would they elect as president if the elections were held at the time of the survey and who they think is a good leader to replace Aquino as president.

Binay getting declining numbers on these different surveys says a large part of Binay’s supporters are abandoning Binay in a mass exodus. they are abandoning Binay based on different dimensions of the candidate as Binay – on trust and performance as VP, as a good leader to replace Aquino and as presidential candidate. Binay is being looked at from different dimensions by the voters and in all aspects they no longer see Binay as fit.

on their own these are already dramatic and impressive declines. put that further into context, Binay used to be the top on all the surveys just a few months ago. he was all alone on top with no one even close to challenge him. Binay’s standing started to erode when alleged charges of corruption and plunder were revealed at the senate hearings. at the height of the weekly hearings, when it became vey apparent that Binay was mired in multiple corruption charges, Grace Poe a neophyte senator surged up in the surveys .

the voters saw Binay as the evil one based on the alleged charges while they saw Poe as good in an election that quickly got into a question of an election of Good vs Evil.

we have said this before. Binay should recognize what is happening to his candidacy, these survey numbers are real and representing real sentiments. the sentiments are astoundingly consistent from many dimensions. for him to change his fortunes, he needs to wear big boy pants and face the charges that have been made against him. until he does that, the declining trend will not change and continue until the actual 2016 election.

does binay have big boy pants?

 

 

 

 

 

triple whammy for Poe, Roxas & Binay in latest SWS survey, Roxas gains the most

Apparently there is a second survey for the presidentiables from SWS and this one puts presidenitables Grace Poe, Jejomar Binay and Mar Roxas practically on a there-way tie.

The survey was conducted Septemebr 2 to 5, 2105 and has the following ratings for the three presidentiables :

• Grace Poe : 26%
• Jemomar Binay : 24% (difference vs Poe – 2% points) 
• Mar Roxas : 20% (dofference vs Binay – 4% points)

(source : http://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections/2016/106788-sws-survey-breakdown-presidential-tie)

With a margin of error at +/- 3%, Poe and Binay are on a statistical tie while  Roxas  vs Binay with a difference of 4% points is statistically significant but  it being just shy by 1% point, that is considered a statistical tie.

unlike the other SWS survey which was an options survey (respondents were asked to name 3 candidates who can replace Aquino), this is a real elections survey where respondents were asked to identify only 1 candidate who they might vote as president if the elections were held during the time of the survey.

this survey gave a triple whammy to all three presdientiables Poe, Binay and Roxas.

1st whammy – this is the biggest whammy and it is for the benefit of Mar Roxas. mar roxas before this survey was a far third to Poe and Binay. roxas jumping to tie the front runners is a big jump for roxas. this mimics the same kind of giant improvement that Roxas got in the other SWS survey where he got a +18% point improvement catapulting him to 2nd position (read here: http://wp.me/pnw03-1W0).

this shows Roxas is a legitimate contender in the election and is on an impressive increasing trend. the increasing trend will serve Roxas well as we move to the actual election in 2016, this means Roxas is building his support base at the same time the support base of Poe and Binay are not moving if not weakening.

2nd whammy – this one hurts Garce Poe. Poe in previous surveys showed she was way ahead of the others and was a clear leader. this survey with two of her rivals catching up with her shows she is not invincible. it says she can be beaten.

3rd whammy – this hurts Jejomar Binay. Binay used to be the runaway winner in the polls but his ratings have been suffering and was on a massive declining trend since the corruption and plunder charges have been exposed in the senate. Binay just getting  a tie with the two others means Binay has not arrested his declining trend and continue to suffer in the polls.

unless Binay changes things, like address the corruption and plunder charges against him, the declining trend will continue and his numbers will shrink significantly by election time. it is possible that the shrinkage will be big enough that the other leaders will overtake him.

Roxas’ ratings have gone up driven by the endorsement of President Aquino for his presidentiable run and Roxas’ declaring that he will continue Aquino’s “Daang Matuwid”. Aquino endorsed Roxas’ presidential run in an event held at Club Filipino on August 30, 2015. Roxas also ran ads almost the next day where he said he will continue Aquino’s “Dang Matuwid”.

Roxas has gained the momentum from this survey and will allow him to enlarge his support base.

Poe will need to work harder to get back her stellar number one position. Let us see if her numbers will improve on the next survey behind her announcement that she will run for president in an event that happened after this survey was conducted.

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Question On Methodology & Design For SWS :

we noticed that the two presidentiables surveys, the options survey and this election survey were run on the same time period. did that mean the questions for the these two separate surveys were in one questionnaire and both were asked of the respondents in the same sitting?

if so, was there no order bias in their answers? 

i would think there would be order bias and one or both of the answers of the respondents will be affected by the other. it would be difficult to accept the survey results if there was order bias. 

Roxas catapults to #2, beats Binay, all behind Aquino’s endorsement and “Daang Matuwid”

latest SWS presidentiables poll for the 2016 election has put a dazzling surprise – Mar Roxas an erstwhile low 3rd in the previous survey has jumped to 2nd place and in the process pushing down Jejomar Binay to 3rd.

not only the improvement in ranking was the big surprise, the numbers are amazing, from the previous poll putting roxas at 21%, roxas catapulted to 39%, a giant leap of +18%.

binay who used to be 2nd now sits at 35%, almost the same as the previous poll at 34%. the 1% point difference is not statistically significant.

source : http://www.sws.org.ph

however, roxas’ lead over binay, +4% points is statistically significant from binay with the +/- 3% points margin of error.

what happened? what caused the phenomenal increase in rating and standing of mar roxas?

we think what drove the impressive increase is the endorsement of president aquino of roxas’ candidacy to the presidency. the SWS survey was conducted  september 2 to 5 which was very close to the announcement of Aquino’s endorsement of Roxas that happened on july 31, 2015 at club filipino. it was a big event as it got full media coverage and was in the news that evening and succeeding days. it has been highly speculated that aquino will endorse roxas, the actual announcement was highly anticipated by everyone.

aquino is the country’s most popular president. no other president was able to gain the kind of very high ratings that aquino has gotten. this high level began at the start of his presidency and was continued on through the years. even aquino’s low ratings were much higher than arroyo’s ratings which almost always stayed on the negative. arroyo is one of the country’s most unpopular president while aquino is the country’s most popular president.

the incumbent president’s endorsement seem to have a lot of power, negative or positive,  in philippine politics.

president arroyo endorsed gibo teodoro but since arroyo was one of the country’s most unpopular president, that endorsement became a kiss of death for teodoro.

cory aquino’s endorsement of fidel ramos we think was one of the reasons ramos got elected. cory was and is one of the country’s most popular and beloved presidents. today, cory is considered a hero by many.

aside from aquino’s endorsement, we think the other driver for roxas’ surge in the polls is “daang matuwid”. daang matuwid was the campaign platform of noynoy aquino when he ran for the presidency, one that he won on a landslide. aside from the 2010 campaign, this was also used by aquino as central and often the headline of aquino’s governance.

right after the endorsement of aquino, roxas immediately proclaimed that he will continue “daang matuwid” and in fact Roxas ran TV ads on “daang matuwid” one day after he was endorsed by aquino.  in speeches aquino identified roxas as the person who he thinks will continue and has the competence to continue “daang matuwid”.

corruption in government which daang matuwid is going against appear to continue to be a top issue among voters. it also helps one of the key aspirants for the presidency is being alleged as a serial and multiple corrupt government official, vp jejomar binay. binay to this day has not answered or made  an effort to dispel the alleged charges of corruption.

this is turn is perhaps the reason why binay has been sliding in the polls. binay’s drop to third is the second for binay. he used to be at the top of the polls before the alleged corruption charges were revealed at the senate,

we had underestimated the power of president aquino as endorser and the idea of “daang matuwid”. we expected improvements but we dd not see it happening in this grand scale.

the momentum is with roxas. poe’s momentum has been stopped and binay may have stabilized. a continuing surge by roxas and a decline in base support for poe and binay can win him the presidency.

 

 

 

in picking a fight with Aquino, Binay gets a truckload of rocks and hits his head with each rock

this is the kindest way to describe what VP Binay just did – he shot himself in the foot in picking a fight with president aquino. we see no strategic value or benefit for him or even any tactical advantage for his presidential campaign. all it has given him are more problems and harm. 

• one of the important things you do for a political campaign is to build coalitions and expand your support base. this is probably one of the top 3 important things that need to be done in a political campaign. elections are won by having the most number of votes compared to your competitors. building coalitions and getting the biggest number of support base is a must, you assign this task to someone in your team to focus on it to make sure you are successful at it,
• by attacking president aquino, presidential binay did not only not do the above, he actually did the exact opposite of it – binay added another enemy to his already long list of enemies. binay is being attacked by many from all sides mainly as a result of the graft and corruption allegations that have been in full display on national TV at the senate. for many months now, most of what binay, his spokespersons and his children have been doing is deflect the mud and slime that has accumulated on binay’s  face. they have been unsuccessful and they need aquino as an enemy like they need a bullet in their heads.
• inviting aquino as an enemy is to say the least a very unfortunate and highly ill-advised choice. noynoy aquino is the country’s most popular president and continue to remain popular even though he has had some problems in recent months. common sense tells you if you are to invite someone as an enemy, choose someone who is weaker than you  or at least someone you know you can win over. binay instead chose the most powerful and most popular political figure in the country.
• not only is aquino a popular president, he has built his presidency and in fact his election campaign that got him a landslide victory in the last election on the platform of “anti-corruption”. now that on its own is already formidable. choosing aquino as an enemy is clearly political suicide for binay because binay is now known for being corrupt and dishonest. aquino. an anti-corruption champion is exactly the person that binay the corrupt does not want to face. people will compare the two and people will decide who to believe. who is more believable – on the issue of credibility, aquino, the anti-corruption champion or  presidentiable Binay who has been charged with corruption? this is like the sinner picking a fight with the Pope.
• aquino has a large support base and allies across the political spectrum. together with aquino they will be defending aquino and can possibly start attacking binay as well. that is not even including yet the office of the president, malacanang itself which probably has the largest communication group in the government. we are already seeing this  – the various spokespersons and allies of aquino including mar roxas have started to defend and counter attack binay, picking a fight with aquino means picking a fight with more than one person. binay now has to deal with each one of them.
• if binay was busy skirting the corruption allegations against him brought up at the senate, now aquino, malacanang and his allies will be added to that existing list. this new enemy that binay invited to join in will take up a lot of his time and effort, a clear distraction on the business of having himself elected as president. it will eat up his time and effort, taking away precious time and effort from persuading voters to elect him. getting the voters to like him is already very difficult given the corruption allegations; the attacks from Aquino, his allies and supporters will just make everything much more difficult if not impossible.
• all these is good news to binay’s opponents, the other presdiencitables. they are now all sitting in the sidelines watching the whole thing unfold, watching binay burn. they don’t even have to do anything to pull down binay. binay is doing it to himself plus aquino, his allies and supporters.

all of the above makes you wonder – why is binay doing this? aquino is the president of the country, he is the anti-corruption champion and more importantly, he is NOT  running for president in 2016. pulling down aquino has no real obvious or hidden value to binay. even if binay succeeds in putting down aquino’s approval rating to zero, that will not do anything to binay’s own ratings nor will that bring down the ratings of the other presidentiables.

supporters of aquino will not move to binay to increase his ratings. aquino has nothing to do with the dramatic declines in binay’s election poll ratings. bringing aquino down will not result to stopping the declining trend of binay’s ratings nor will it reverse the trend. the cause of the decline are the graft and corruption charges that have been nationally televised during the senate hearings. to arrest the decline in his ratings is to answer those allegations and prove them wrong. binay has taken the strategy of ignoring the allegations, of not answering them of bringing up unrelated and imagined issues just so he does not directly answer the allegations. no amount of talk of other issues will resolve his problem. the label of corruption has been stuck on binay. putting in more stickers will not remove the corruption sicker. that is where the focus is of the people.

what could have been binay’s other option? it could have been a simple one – resign from the cabinet and say he is doing so so that he can focus on the preparations that are needed to be done for his presidential run and profusely thank aquino for allowing to serve the country in the capacities that were given to him. had binay done that, none of these things would have happened. no additional enemies and certainly no additional negative talk about binay. resigning amicably and profusely thanking aquino would have prevented aquino and his allies, even aquino’s anointed from attacking binay. that would have been the masterful exit.

the strategic thinking on this move of binay has failed. we do not even think there was some strategic thinking done on it. none was done as we do not see how binay would have benefited from this move. we can’t figure out even a single benefit. the only possible “benefit” was that binay has clearly declared himself as separate and not part of the aquino administration, the administration that he intends to replace. if this was the objective, it is completely unnecessary and totally worthless. we already know binay is not part of the administration, we know that from his actions and words and that of malacanang, telling us something we already know has no value.

if he wants to present his own platform of government that is different from the administration, he can do that just by coming out with a press release or a major speech on policy. breaking up with the administration and attacking it was unnecessary.

bottom line is with what binay did he gained absolutely nothing but lost a hell lot of things. this is a case of not just getting a rock and hitting your head with it, it is getting a whole truckload of rocks and hitting your head with each rock until the truck is emptied of rocks.

Mar Roxas is back, not dead & out – June 2015 Pulse Asia survey

just when things are heating up in the pre-2016 election campaign and new stars are emerging, Grace Poe and Duterte, based on the most recent Pulse Asia survey, Mar Roxas comes out as still alive and not yet down and out as others have been saying or as others are wishing.

 

Roxas in the last Pulse Asia survey shows a magnificent gain of +6% points, now at 10% from his previous 4%. he more than doubled his rating. Roxas is  now a strong 4th. he is back to his previous rating of low double digit numbers.

this rating shows he is definitely not out of the presidentiables race. what would be interesting for him is his rating in the next survey. if Roxas sustains the double digit rating and specially if he gains, then we can say he has recovered and reversed the trend to an uptrend.

so much attention has been given to Grace Poe’s rating while very little has been given to roxas. we’re not saying the attention given to Poe is undeserving because it is. Poe over taking the previous poll leader Binay is a great achievement and worth the praise and attention.

but looking at the numbers  – there are only two presidentiables who have gotten significant gains in this Pulse Asia survey – Poe is one of them, +16% points which is astronomical and the other is Roxas which is a +6% points. the increase in number for Roxas may not look much, a +6% points but it actually is considering where he was before just a 4% rating. Roxas more than doubled his rating in the latest survey. a number that is being doubled is very, very impressive even if it is a small base.

Duterte also gained, a +3% points to 15% from the previous 12% but that is not statistically different with the +/- 3 margin of error. statistically speaking, Duterte has not gained anything.

what is even more interesting is that both Poe and Roxas gained. one did not gain at the expense of the other. that is a good sign. it means each one has its own base support and they are gaining from non-admin candidates. this of course can change in the coming surveys but for now, the numbers are looking good for both of them.

the election is months away and except for Binay, the candidates have not officially declared themselves as candidates. time is on the side of Roxas. he has a lot of time to build his coalitions and support base. there are still a lot that he can do.

but what are these things that he can do? that is another topic on another time.

 

 

 

dramatic drops for UNA & dramatic increases for Team PNoy in february SWS sentatoriables survey

the latest february 2013 SWS survey, on the 2013 senatoriables is characterized by dramatic drops and dramatic increases in rankings and/or ratings by some senatoriables. the dramatic drops are  all on UNA senatoriables while the dramatic increases were  on Team PNoy senatoriables.

this survey results are grim and bad news for many UNA senatoriables and for the whole party and great news for  Team PNoy and  specific senatoriables.

this is how bad it is for the UNA senatoriables :

• 9 out of the top 12 senatoriables belong to the admin PNoy coalition with the UNA opposition getting only 3
• 3 UNA senatoriables dropped out of the top 12 while 2 from  Team PNoy barged into the top 12
• 6 out 12 Team PNoy senatoriables gained in rank (aquino, poe, villar, madrigal, trillanes and angara), 6 stayed the same (cayetano, escudero, hontiveros, legarda, magsaysay r, pimentel)
• 6 out of 9 UNA senatoriables declined in rank (honasan, ejercito, enrile, gordon, maceda, zubiri), only 2 gained (binay, magsaysay)  while 1 stayed the same (cojuangco)

• 5 in 12 of the Team PNoy senatoriables gained in ratings (aquino, madrigal, poe, trillanes, villar), 4 stayed (angara, escudero, hontiveros, pimentel) while only 3 lost cayetano, legarda, magsaysay r). these three losses were minimal with 2 losing only 1 percentage point while the 3rd lost 2 percentage points
• on the other hand, 7 out of 9 senatoriables of UNA lost ratings (cojuangco, ejercito, enrile, gordon, honasan, maceda, zubiri), 1 the same (magsaysay m)  and only 1 gained (binay).
• most of the dramatic loses in rankings and/or ratings were suffered by the UNA senatoriables – jv ejercito, migz zubiri, jack enrile, gringo honasan and ernie maceda
• consequently, most of the dramatic gains in ranking and ratings were gained by Team PNoy senatoriables – grace poe, bam aquino, jamby madrigal and cynthia villar
• no changes occurred for UNA bottom dweller mitos magsaysay, tingting cojuangco and ernie maceda

what can explain the dramatic loses by the UNA senatoriables?

we think its a brand positioning blunder by UNA. we read it first from statements from mitos magsaysay where she said UNA wanted “aquino to succeed” and that their role is to give “constructive criticism”. (read here: malacanang delivers THE BOMB on senatoriable mitos magsaysay)

a few days after that, jv ejercito basically said the same thing, plus the UNA spokesman. some of them even said UNA was not necessarily an opposition party. instead of saying they are an opposition party, they were saying things like they will be “fiscalizers”. why then would voters favor UNA when the president himself has his own set of senatoriables?

these were very confusing statements by the UNA senatoriables and the UNA party. people must have wondered  if UNA was not the opposition party, what are they then? that can mean they are part of the administration. if they are part of the administration, why do they have competing senatoriables to that of the admin party?

this was a very basic and fundamental blunder by UNA. instead of differentiating  themselves against Team PNoy, they were actually making themselves similar to their opponents. two of the key elements of brand building is uniqueness and differentiation versus competition. instead of achieving those, they were actually making themselves similar. the result is UNA’s brand positioning became invisible in the eyes of the voters. being invisible allows the voters to only see Team PNoy.

Team PNoy released their TV ads soon after. statements by jv ejercito and the UNA party in reaction to the TV ad did not help the party either and made it worst for them.

Ejercito explained where UNA stands when it comes to the Aquino administration. They support his platform of good governance but they want to keep the Senate as an independent institution to keep the administration in check.

“We admit that the President is very popular. We have supported the President on his thrust for good governance. But sometimes when you are too popular, you do not know anymore the pulse of the people,” he said.

http://www.rappler.com/nation/21139-jv-ejercito-to-team-pnoy-why-the-impostor-tag

ejercito’s words explain the problem UNA created for  themselves. he did say the party supports aquino in his platform of good governance. aquino was elected by a landslide vote and continue to be the country’s most popular president on the basis of a good governance election promise and actions during his term. ejercito simply acknowledged aquino is doing well which we think to many voters would mean they should favor the senators aquino is supporting.

UNA was not defining themselves in the mind of the voters. what they were doing instead was propping up even more an already popular president and this president has his own list of senatoriables.

in marketing and advertising, you never talk about your competition, you talk about yourself and how good you are and what you can do that competition cannot. if you talk about competition, you do so only to show their weakness or failure. in this case UNA was not even mentioning any failure or weakness of aquino or Team PNoy. ejercito even praised the achievements and strengths of aquino.

UNA’s blunder is not just very bad brand positioning, we think its really a detrimental strategic blunder. we are guessing that they did research and found out that noynoy aquino is a very popular president and that noynoy aquino is the strongest endorser in philippine politics bar none.

UNA was unable to figure what they can do to counter this high popularity of noynoy aquino. we think their biggest error is thinking that since aquino is very popular, they should not go against him. and that thinking is very much like giving up on the election even before it started.

 this kind of results in the surveys with the kind of competition and smarts or lack of smarts by UNA is not surprising. Team PNoy must be very pleased with the way UNA is handling their campaign.

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source of SWS survey :    http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=&title=Team-PNoy-takes-the-lead-in-latest-SWS-BW-poll&id=66397#

Team PNoy takes the lead in latest SWS-BW poll

senatoriable nancy binay’s TV ad – empty promises glorified

nancy binay, daughter of vice president jejomar binay will run for senator.  she released a tv ad, legally epal, with the tagline “Kay Nancy Binay – mga bata gaganda ang buhay” (With Nancy Binay – children will have a more beautiful life).

the ad positions the senatoriable as pro children with the  specific promises of improving education (“gaganda ang edukasyon”) and improving health (gaganda ang kalusugan”) leading to a more beautiful life (“gaganda ang buhay”) for the children.

it is an interesting positioning as it specifically places nancy on a pro-children promise. we do not remember political candidates having taken this positioning in the past. question is, is this enough to get her elected? is children’s good life a compelling proposition to voters? we assume some research has been done on this one.

while nancy’s advertising positioning and promise  is specific to pro-children, it is not specific on exactly what she plans to do in promoting the “good life” of children through “good education” and “good health”. it does not specifically answer the question – how will she do it?

in advertising, what is missing is called the “reason why” or the support. it tells the audience how will the candidate deliver the promise, what will she do to make it happen.

from an advertising technical standpoint it does have a “reason why” – it uses her dad, vice president binay with copy that says “mana sa kanyang ama” (“takes up [inherit] from her father”)  but does not say any specific action that nancy will take to improve education and health for children. all it does is to ride on the general popularity of her dad. after all, he did get elected vice president in the last presidential elections.

but jejomar is a weak reason why for the promise of children’s welfare – he is not known to be a children’s welfare advocate. in fact his ads during the vice presidential campaign were more on the general progress in the city of makati and the specific benefits residents of makati have gained while he was mayor there, children’s welfare was hardly mentioned.

the reason why, specially in political ads is very important. it gives specific promises as to what plan of action the candidate will do when elected into office. using a reason why that does not connect to the promise is of no help and of no consequence, it is like having none at all.

in this ad, nancy binay gave empty promises that we doubt will get her elected. it’s a WAWAM – what a waste of advertising money.

president noynoy aquino makes history – net satisfaction rating beats all presidents since cory aquino

the SWS through businessworld released the latest presidential public satisfaction survey results, the Third Quarter 2012 Social Weather Report. the survey was conducted on august 24 to 27, 2012 which is period 9 of aquino’s presidency.

we did an analysis of the survey results and one of the headlines from the survey results which has not been mentioned in news reports is that president aquino’s period 9 rating compared to similar period 9 net satisfaction ratings of other presidents before him is the highest among all of them (chart below).

• cory aquino : +32% points
• fidel ramos : +49% points
• erap estrada : +19% points
• gloria macapagal arroyo : +28% points
• noynoy aquino : +67% points

comparing aquino’s latest net satisfaction rating to the same period 9 of the other presidents is the proper way to compare these ratings. comparing it to the same period of the administration of the presidents remove the “seasonality effect” of the ratings. removing that makes the ratings comparable and “of the same kind”.

satisfaction ratings of presidents normally drop the longer the presidents sits in office. this happens as people remove more and more of the honeymoon feeling with the new president and as the president performs his duties on a regular basis. it is normal to see more people getting disappointed as the people see that the president is unable to fulfill his election promises and as the president fumbles on day to day performance.

the chart above shows the cory, ramos and erap saw their net satisfaction ratings drop from the high at the start of their administration to period 9. only arroyo enjoyed a slight increase. it is interesting that aquino was able to beat the performance of his mother, cory who undoubtedly was one of the country’s most popular presidents.

to see president aquino’s ratings rise at this level and beating all the other presidents is a testament to the huge popularity of the sitting president among the people.

in a previous post in this blog (click to read : ABC socio eco class gives aquino satisfaction ratings rebound, hits highest level in his presidency) we also said that aquino’s latest satisfaction ratings got a boost from the rich or the ABC socio-eco class (chart below).

aquino getting a boost on his over-all net satisfaction rating because of the rich or the ABC socio-eco class is more significant as the lowest net satisfaction rating he got in the last period (period 8) was caused by the rich or the ABC socio-eco class abandoning aquino together with urban areas and ncr. (read blog post here: the rich from NCR & urban areas abandons aquino, grossly dissatisfied with president’s performance – SWS survey). the latest satisfaction rating of aquino marks the return of the rich or the ABC socio-eco class in supporting aquino.

~~~mindscape landmark~~~
carlo p arvisu

the rich from NCR & urban areas abandons aquino, grossly dissatisfied with president’s performance – SWS survey

president noynoy aquino’s net satisfaction hit rock bottom since he took office in the latest SWS  presidential performance survey, going down to +42. while this is still on the “good” level as SWS categorizes it, the worry part is that it may be the start of a  perilous  dropping trend.

aquino is admittedly the country’s most popular president of the country when he won the election in a landslide  and his net satisfaction ratings starting off at a very high level. the contrast of his net satisfaction rating reaching an all time low came as a shock to malacanang that it has taken the silly step of asking SWS to explain the drop.

source : http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/261508/news/nation/malaca-wants-sws-to-explain-drop-in-pnoys-ratings

the biggest contributor to aquino’s over-all net satisfaction rating is the rich or the ABC socio-eco class abandoning aquino.   his net satisfaction ratings suffered a significant deterioration on all key indicators, with a  total net satisfaction drop of 37% points to +25% net satisfied from +62% in the most recent May 2012 poll from the previous March 2012 poll.

this total net satisfaction was pulled down by a significant deterioration of +25% points. that is about a one third drop among the ABC socio-eco class.  there was also a significant increase of ABC respondents dissatisfied  with aquino with an increase of +13% points. almost a doubling from previous poll from 16% dissatisfied to now 29% dissatisfied.

another contributor to the drop  in net satisfaction rating of aquino  is NCR, where it also showed a dramatic deterioration  of -34% points in net satisfaction,  almost as large as the drop among the ABC, to only +18% from the previous period of +52%.

there was a significant deterioration in number of people from the NCR who were satisfied in aquino’s performance from +72% to +48% a drop of -24% points. consequently the number of people dissatisfied in the performance of aquino from the NCR increased from 20% to 30% , a huge increase of +10% points. that is a huge 50% increase.

in this poll period, those from the urban areas also showed a big drop in net satisfaction in the performance of aquino to +35% points from +45% points from previous polling period. this shows a high -10% points drop. the  huge drop in net satisfaction among those living in urban areas was driven by a high drop in number of people who were satisfied with the performance of aquino with a -9% point decrease from previous period; to 59% from 68%. dissatisfaction ratings stayed about the same at 24% in this polling period from 23% of previous period.

in summary the group of pinoys most responsible for the drop in net satisfaction rating of president aquino are the rich who belong to the ABC soci-eco class who live in NCR and urban areas. it appears to us this group of pinoys have abandoned aquino.

this group of people are the educated and the more enlightened  about national issues and problems. it is interesting to note that this kind of dramatic drops did not occur in the rest of luzon, visayas, mindanao and other socio-eco classes including rural areas. the period was marked with almost weekly news of price increases in oil and transport fares.  these increases in prices may be added to the perception that the aquino administration has not been doing enough to help the economy.

 

satisfaction ratings do shift over time, and almost always they drop from its peak which usually is at the start when the president assumes office. gravity applies to these performance satisfaction ratings as they usually erode. people give the new president high ratings at the start as it comes from a just concluded election. as everyday problems and challenges of governance occur, people change their minds as they are able to gauge the president up close and over and beyond election promises which are almost always good things.

 the upside for president aquino is that the drop that his net satisfaction ratings  have suffered from the start of his office to period 8 of the polling time frame is not the worst among the four presidents before him.

aquino’s net satisfaction ratings drop  is just the third worst  with -18% points  following erap who is on top with -47% points and followed second by arroyo at – 20% points. in this comparison, to us the most telling for aquino is the closeness to arroyo’s drop in net satisfaction ratings. to be compared to arroyo is perhaps the worst that anyone can do for aquino.

erap’s massive drop in net satisfaction ratings after 8 polling periods is understandable as he was involved in an impeachment trial during the time of the survey while the drop in arroyo’s net satisfaction may be attributed to mostly disappointment in performance as president.

it is difficult to find comfort in these numbers for aquino. it may be just a fluke or this can be the start of a real strong downtrend net satisfaction rating for him. while the president is still on the positive side, getting a negative as arroyo had gotten during the last years of her term would be very disappointing.

source : rappler.com

in many ways, it is understandable that malacanang is anxious about these poll results.

the economy has done well during the polling period  in march 2012 as the government reported a very impressive +6.4% GDP growth rate for the first quarter of 2012, the second highest in asia next to china and one that surprised and exceeded expectations and forecasts.

add to that the stellar performance of the philippine stock market where it is the best performing in the world  which has broken historic highs 20 times since january this year alone.

there is difficulty in reconciling  how the rich who belong the ABC socio-eco class has abandoned aquino and whose ranks have shown dramatic shifts in satisfaction disfavoring the president when it is this group who invest in the stock market and who most likely benefited from the 6.4% GDP growth rate.

it makes you wonder what is it that has caused the rich to abandon aquino and give the president dramatic drops in satisfaction.  if the rich are not benefiting  from the GDP growth rate, who is? if it is not economic reasons that  is disappointing them, what is it about aquino and his job performance then?

aquino during the election campaign has kept harping on how well he listens to the people. in fact he even carried that election campaign positioning through his administration via the no wang-wang policy and the often quoted “kayo ang boss ko”  spin.  now is the time to actually do what he says he is good at – it is time for him to listen and listen hard to the people and find out why the rich from NCR and urban areas have abandoned aquino and has given him the worst net satisfaction rating of his administration.

~~ carlo p arvisu ~~
mindscape landmark 

why pinoys who are single or married need family planning in their relationship

some years ago, a comprehensive research was done on the habits and attitudes of pinoys on family planning.  both qualitative and quantitative researches were done on a nati0nal basis.

first to be conducted were a series of qualitative research, focus group discussions in metro manila, davao and cebu among several groups of women and men with varying age groups. and marital status. the qualitative research was done  to gain possible consumer insights for the development of advertising that will promote family planning use, advocacy work and public relations efforts. equally important, the qualitative researches were conducted to serve as inputs for the design of the quantitative research that was going to be done nationwide.

these charts are only a small portion of the whole research but it is quite telling on where the minds and hearts of pinoys, specially filipina women are in relation to family planning to themselves and their families.

the first part of the FGDs (focus group discussions) was a discussion on values and dreams of the respondents for their families.

an interesting methodology was designed. a drawing of a tree with roots, trunk and leaves were placed on the board. respondents were given post it pads where they were asked to write on them the values they believe  in, those that are important for them or their dreams. they were asked to put the post its on the board, place it anywhere inside or outside the tree. once everyone has done this, their answers were processed and discussed with the moderator.

where the respondents placed the post it in relation to the tree had meaning to them. post its placed outside the tree meant whatever was written there was not very important for them. those placed on the leaves were more important and down to the roots. to the respondents, those they placed on the roots were the most important for them.

these were the findings:

first, everyone in the FGDs said their family is the most important to them. that is true even among singles, specially more for those married or with children,  across all age groups and in both sexes.  in fact most of them even said their family is more important to them than themselves. they are absolutely willing to do anything and everything for their family.

they said that what they are working and living for is to fulfill the dreams of their families as a unit, to secure the future of their children and the family’s  well-being. this is not necessarily just about  money or wealth, in fact those were hardly mentioned.  what was more important to them were the emotional aspect, the joys and happiness that their families felt or aspired for. most of them said it is these priorities that they are presently working for and making such a huge effort for.

after  this  was discussed extensively, the respondents were then asked –  how will you feel when you find out today that you are pregnant? (or for male respondents if their spouses or significant others were pregnant?) the idea was to present to the respondents a simulation of what happens in real life – how an unplanned pregnancy happens to people.

to most of the respondents, pregnancy was something that is planned. for those who were married, they discuss it and plan for it with their spouses. the planning usually is just to agree if they want or do not want to have a child or an additional child at the moment.  for single respondents, it is normally not thought of as it was certain they did not want to have children out of marriage.

while they had these in their minds, the respondents know that getting pregnant was always a possibility as most of them were sexually active, even those who were single. they saw sex as part and parcel of having a relationship with the opposite sex.

to the question how will they feel or what is their reaction if they found out they were pregnant now, these were their answers to that question:

the respondents saw unplanned pregnancy essentially as a major disruption, something that will stop or derail the plans that they have been pursuing and currently working on for their families.  there is nothing else in their lives that had quite the same impact and effect on their lives than an unplanned pregnancy.

all of them considered being pregnant and having a child as a blessing, even among the singles. but they would rather plan it or get pregnant out of a determined, clear and agreed to goal and at the  right timing with their partners. an unplanned pregnancy to them is very unwelcome.

the respondents knew that having a baby at that point in time of their lives mzy not be the best time. they do not take having a baby lightly. they know it is a big responsibility and will involve giving most if not all of  their time and effort for the caring of the baby. that would necessarily take time and effort from their work and the duties and responsibilities they were presently fulfilling. most of them said life at its present state was already difficult, having an unplanned pregnancy will make everything more than doubly difficult.

that was the mindset by which advertising and marketing efforts on family planning will be set on in getting the target audience to use it. this and other researches were conducted to get a good picture of the user mindset.

but over and above the advertising and marketing use, this explains very well the challenges faced by family planning advocates.

~~midscape landmark~~
carlo p arvisu 

“It’s More Fun In The Philippines” – new tourism slogan. pinoys will make the difference

the DOT, secretary mon jimenez in particular is explaining the new slogan for philippine tourism as you read this.  live tweets from reporters in the venue have said this is the new international line : “It’s More Fun In The Philippines”.

we like the line. the power of the line rests on the key  insight that tourists really want to have fun. it is the first and last goal of every tourist.  filipinos too are fun to be with. we  in fact can find humor in almost everything.

another core insight is what sec jimenez said – “It is the Filipino that completes the Philippine experience”.   that could very well be the secret weapon of this new tourism campaign. the philippines do not have a monopoly of mountains, beaches and other tourists sites, every other country has one. but it is only in the philippines where filipinos are everywhere. it  will be the filipinos themselves who will make a difference  for tourists to enjoy themselves during their vacation.

a country can have the best beaches in the world, but a rude and an unpleasant encounter with the people will delete all that joy.

however, we have not seen the execution of the filipinos as key to the campaign in the ads so far. they are still about tourist spots. jimenez in his speech this morning and in other times have been talking about the importance of the contribution of pinoys to the success of the tourism campaign. we will need to see how this is executed in future ads.

the line is also a competitive line. it does not just say what the philippines is all about, it says the philippines is better than other countries in giving them what they want which is fun.  in advertising terms, that is a powerful slant.

images from here : http://www.rappler.com/business/725-new-tourism-campaign-out-philippines-is-fun?utm_source=RapTwitter&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=SMTrack

but then again “#1forFUN” is included in the local line. this is not an original as it is in the amazon.com website.

first, we are unable to appreciate the need for a local line. this line, though simple is also in english. in twitter, singer and songwriter jim paredes of the APO said the tagalog translation of the international line also works very well – “Mas Masaya Sa Pinas”  we agree with paredes. we think that is a great line for pinoys in the country.

we do not see any value in having two lines for the same thing. besides the line “#1forFUN” is not an original. we do not think it has any place in the slogan we want to use for the ocuntry.

so far pinoys seem to take to the line looking at the number of tweets it was able to get from everyone so much so that it was trending worldwide. practically all the tweets were positive with almost all giving their own example of why it is more fun in the philippines.

this is a far cry from the precious DOT chief who had to junk the line they developed where people were vjust divided plus the fact that there logo design was just too close to the the Poland tourism logo.

we will see how the ad agency will take this further if this line has legs.

the DOT also has a new website – http://www.itsmorefuninthephilippines.com/

~~a mindscape landmark~~

Pro-RH Bill TV Ad – in a strategic move, “pro-chance” renames an old issue

this ad defines the RH Bill squarely on the positioning of helping the poor.

it says the RH Bill will give those born in poverty a chance in life, chance to continuous education, to eat properly, to have ambition and not just dreams, and a chance to get out of poverty and in summary – a chance to life.

after that list, it said “yun lang naman ang hinihingi natin” (those are just the things we are asking for).

poverty alleviation or as we prefer  to put it, to  give the  people the tools to help themselves get out of poverty is what sectors of the pro-RH Bill is promising. we don’t entirely agree with that thinking as we do not think the RH Bill is the lone silver bullet for poverty alleviation, we think the RH Bill as we have said previously is just one of many tools that the government can give the poor ro use in taking themselves out of poverty.

the cause  of poverty in our view is mutli-faceted and its solutions need to be multi-faceted as well. the government, civil society and the poor themselves need to offer multiple solutions, from all sides and levels to solve poverty.

this outright positioning of the RH Bill as poverty alleviation solution while we think it makes sense at a certain level brings it right smack to what anti-RH Bill proponents are saying about their opposition to the RH Bill. one of the things they are saying is that the RH Bill is not the solution to poverty. that there are many other solutions that the government can employ to solve poverty,

we are not however saying the ad is making the wrong argument, we are just saying this jumps directly into the frying pan of debate that anti-RH Bill proponents can have very good arguments for.

we like the ad just the same for the  very idea of redefining the RH debate in favorable terms for the RH Bill. it is a very clever advertising strategy – this ad defines the RH Bill as a pro-chance, adding a new term to the debate and a dig at the traditional debates lodged by the anti-RH Bill proponents in saying the RH-Bill is anti-life,  they are pro-life and that the RH Bill is pro-choice.

actually these terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life”  are being misused in the RH debate in the country. pro-choice in the western countries mean women hace the choice to abortion while pro-life is  anti-abortion and protecting the unborn child.

in the philippines, the anti-RH Bill proponents have demonized it to mean the RH Bill is pro-abortion, which it isn’t and modern methods of contraception as abortifacient, which they are also not.

this ad in a way corrects the misinformation advanced by the anti-RH Bill proponents and very smartly re-defines the debate  by making  the RH Bill to mean pro-chance for the poor to remove themselves from poverty,

it is excellent strategic thinking and excellent copywriting. we applaud PLCPD and the ad agency who developed this ad.

~~a mindscape landmark~~