ANGELES CITY – The decline in Pres. Duterte’s trust rating in just over three months this year is a signal of the unraveling of his populist presidency and more people are now thinking of him as a “false messiah.”
This was the assertion of Anakpawis Partylist Rep. Ariel Casilao amid a survey showing the trust rating of Duterte slid down by five points from “very good” in the first quarter of 2018 to “good” in the second quarter.
Casilao said “people have now realized that the populist candidate who claimed he hated oligarchs and promised a better life for ordinary Filipinos is a false messiah.”
“We are now seeing the unraveling of his populist presidency. Unless Duterte reverses his anti-people policies that only benefit the oligarchs in his inner circle, the number of Filipinos who are disappointed with his administration is bound to increase in the coming months. But it seems to me that he has already made a pact with more than one devil to inflict more hardships on ordinary Filipinos. So don’t place much hope on Duterte reversing himself,” he said.
Casilao attributed the decline primarily to Duterte’s implementation of the TRAIN Law which sent prices increasing across almost all goods and services, including utilities, triggering a 5.2 percent inflation in June, up from 4.6 percent in May.
Casilao said “a large portion of those who are disappointed with Duterte are workers who have been extremely dismayed at his failure to fulfil his campaign promise to end ‘endo’”.
“Duterte’s war on drugs which reportedly claimed around 20,000 victims, mostly of poor background, is also a black mark on his administration, adding to the growing resentment of the public versus Duterte,” he added.
Casilao also said he was not discounting “the issue of corruption as among the factors for the decline, noting that Duterte’s anti-corruption is actually a sham, consisting largely of recycling corrupt offi cials he supposedly fired.”
Casilao also noted that Duterte’s backing out from the peace talks “which should have been a venue for resolving persisting socio-economic woes like landlessness is one of Pres. Duterte’s biggest mistake as it literally put into the trash bin the aspiration of the ordinary masses of peasants, workers, urban poor and the middle section to have a just and lasting peace.”
“Not unless this government hears the clamor of the people for genuine social change and stop its all-out war policy on drugs and counter- insurgency, no amount of deodorizing stunt will recover his fading trust rating and the unraveling of his false populism.”, Casilao also said.
