Sigaw slams SWS survey on Cha-cha

Charter change proponent Sigaw ng Bayan lambasted yesterday a recent survey by Social Weather Stations (SWS) showing that more Filipinos are against Cha-cha or Charter change.

Sigaw spokesman Raul Lambino said more than nine million Filipinos have already signed up for the people’s initiative as a mode of amending the Constitution and effecting a shift to a parliamentary system of government.

"We do not know where SWS is coming from, and what kind of social weather it is tracking because an overwhelming majority of our people wants sweeping structural changes (through Charter change) — and they want it now," he said.

Lambino said the overwhelming support for Charter change, most especially in the countryside, is borne out, by the fact that many more signed up after the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) conducted a nationwide information drive.

Questioning the SWS’ motive, he said the survey questions were slanted in such a way that it came up with a twisted picture of the national mood on conditional reforms and the proposed shift to a unicameral parliamentary system.

Lambino said the questions posed by SWS in its survey, conducted from June 11 to 22, obscured the public clamor for Charter change to switch from a conflict-riddled presidential form of government.

He also complained about the foul tactics employed by opposition groups to harass signature gatherers, forcing registered voters to recall their signatures, and arm-twisting barangay officials or election registrars into sabotaging the verification process.

"But these Gestapo tactics did not work because the people want change," Lambino said.

He said the increasingly popular support for Charter change is shown by the survey conducted by the Center for Issues and Advocacy from May 15 to 29, which indicated that 64 per cent of Filipinos now favor constitutional reforms.

Lambino called SWS to task for including in its latest survey a question "on whether the respondents favor the Charter change being pushed by President Arroyo," instead of just asking whether they support constitutional reforms per se.

"The issue of Charter change should be taken on its own and not linked to any personality," he said.

Lambino said the SWS should not have concluded that Charter change advocates still have to meet the constitutional requirements for the people’s initiative when local election officials are almost done verifying signatures.

He noted that they gathered more than nine millio signatures or almost double the constitutional requirement of 12 per cent of the total voting population, which is equal to roughly 5.12 million voters. — Jaime Laude