FVR—the best finisher

The Maguindanao massacre is ever prominent in public consciousness. The continued non-resolution of this case is the sole negative grade in the people’s report card on the administration’s performance on many separate subjects.

SWS has tracked public opinion on this matter in six national surveys since December 2009, when it initially found 41 percent satisfied, compared to 44 percent dissatisfied (i.e., net -3), with “what the government has done up to now, to resolve the Maguindanao massacre case with justice.”  Net satisfaction has stayed negative, at -12 in September 2010, -5 in November 2010, -19 in March 2011,-16 in June 2011, and -13 in September 2011.

The national percentage saying that the pace of the Maguindanao massacre case is “much too slow” was 75 in March 2011, 75 in June 2011, and 78 in September 2011.  The percentage saying it is going “at the right pace” was only 21 in March, 22 in June, and 20 in September.  Hardly anyone says the pace of the case is “too much in a hurry.”

It is the court system that needs to be pushed into faster action.  The Filipino people themselves don’t need pushing.

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The definitive biography of FVR. Last Wednesday was the Philippine launch date of the very important book “Trustee of the nation: the biography of Fidel V. Ramos” by W. Scott Thompson (professor emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy), published by Anvil.

This fascinating book is THE definitive biography of FVR.  It has 451 pages, meticulously documented by 767 footnotes, with 16 pages of bibliography, and 10 pages of index. It uses internal memos and interviews. Scott, who has known FVR for over 35 years, writes of him: “In the end, with some small exceptions where his own privacy was not only earned but irrelevant to the book as a whole, he opened his entire life’s record to me”  (p.423).  Though FVR said, at the book launch, that the book is not his but Scott’s, it is also, I think, FVR’s way of sharing many little-known details of his life with the Filipino people.

I first met Scott in 1996, at the Fletcher forum “The Philippine Road to Nichood,” which became a book edited by Thompson and Wilfrido V. Villacorta, published by De La Salle University and SWS.  Scott, an SWS Fellow, follows the surveys regularly, but his book does not need to cite boring statistics.

FVR, a stickler for comprehensive staff work, was the president who paid the most attention to surveys as scientific information for governance, rather than for publicity or election guidance.  SWS briefed him and his assembled Cabinet every few months; he would regularly recommend the regular use of surveys to everyone.  Chief among our clients was Jose Almonte, national security adviser, whose close relationship with FVR is highly detailed in Scott’s book.

In 1993 (power-crisis time), SWS briefed FVR on a confidential survey, done for the National Power Corporation, finding most people of Masinloc, Zambales, opposed to the prospective coal-fired power plant. Seeing his high trust rating in Masinloc, FVR told us that he would personally go there to convince the people that the plant would be constructed with adequate safeguards. Within two weeks, he did just that.

For the January 1998 annual meeting of the International Social Survey Program, hosted by SWS in Manila (timed with the independence centennial), President Ramos gave time for a courtesy call at the Palace to the delegates from 30 countries; it was the only time an ISSP group was able to meet the chief executive of a host country.  In 2005, SWS was pleased to have FVR as guest of honor at its 20th anniversary celebration.

The Ramos ratings. Thus far, FVR is the president with the longest honeymoon. His net ratings were in the +60s all the way from September 1992 up to mid-1994, and never below +49 in the rest of 1994 (+50 is our borderline for “very good”).

His low point was in 1995.  The Flor Contemplacion tragedy early in the year led to a +25 in March (“moderate”).  In the third quarter, the rice price crisis brought on his record-low +1 (“neutral”) in October 1995.  But he recovered to +17 (“moderate”) in March 1996.  By April 1997 he was back to +50.

Of course, honeymoons are temporary.  Ratings eventually fall, but how low do they go? Cory Aquino’s rating ended at +7 in April 1992, whereas Joseph “Erap” Estrada’s ended at +9 in December 2000; these scores are “neutral.” Yet neither Cory nor Erap ever had a negative rating.  Gloria Arroyo’s net ratings were negative all the way from October 2004 (at -6) to the end in June 2010, at a “poor” -17.

In the final SWS survey of his tenure (April 1998), FVR’s report card culminated with 52 percent satisfied, 33 percent dissatisfied, or net +19 (“moderate”).  Thus FVR was the best finisher, as president, in opinion poll history.  Let us see, in 2016, if President Aquino will equal him.

FVR, as former president, isn’t finished either.  In particular, his role as a loving son is seen in a 371-page book “Words of Wisdom: FVR WOW 11-11-11-111,” consisting of quotes from FVR and contemporaries, dedicated to his father Ambassador Narciso “Nachong” Ramos on his 111th birth anniversary on Nov. 11, 2011, collected and edited by Melandrew T. Velasco, published by Ramos Peace and Development Foundation, 2011.  It’s another book to get, in addition to the Scott Thompson biography.

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Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.