For Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, it’s perplexing that President Duterte has continued to enjoy a high popularity rating despite his “irreverence” for institutions, pro-China stance and violation of human rights.

The President scored a net satisfaction rating of +56 during the first quarter this year, according to a Social Weather Stations survey taken from March 23 to 27. This is a two-point drop from his +58 rating last December.

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Both ratings were considered “very good.”

“It is a puzzle that despite the failure of President Rodrigo Duterte to deliver most of his campaign promises, his irreverence to established institutions, including the Catholic Church, his unpatriotic surrender to China’s expansionism in the West Philippine Sea, his policy equivocation, and his antihuman rights record, he still enjoys a high popularity rating across classes in his second year in office,” Laghman said in a statement.

The Inquirer’s requests for comment from presidential spokesperson Harry Roque went unanswered.

The President, 73, quietly marked the first day of his third year in office on Sunday.

Possible explanations

But Lagman, a vocal critic of the President and a member of the House opposition, offered several explanations for the President’s high ratings.

The electorate “simply want to justify their choice, however errant it may have been,” he said.

The people “like a leader who is authoritative even in his blunders and blabbering,” the lawmaker said.

Emotional appeal

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“Duterte’s behavior appeals to the people’s notion of a malaking tao (VIP) and speaking his mind is seen as a sign of being a totoong tao (being real),” he added.

Lagman also said that the President was using emotional appeal and “taps into the collective frustrations of ordinary people by attacking institutions and groups that the general public feel have failed them, like the Catholic Church, the bureaucracy and the elite.”

The President recently sparked outrage after he called God “stupid” in a June 22 speech in Davao City, in which he took aim at the biblical story of creation, and questioned why God made Adam and Eve perfect only to allow them to fall from into sin.

“Who is this stupid God? You created something perfect and then you think of an event that would destroy the quality of your work,” he said. “How can you rationalize that God? How can you believe him?”

For his part, Sen. Panfilo Lacson admitted he had lost part of his confidence in the President after the latter’s harsh remarks about God, but added that he would continue to support him for the nation’s sake.

“Definitely it diminished my belief in him because he reached the limit, he crossed the line. He should make amends and express this because after all, he is the leader of the country,” the administration ally said in a radio interview.

“[His comments] reinforce what he thinks about God. But I continue to support him for the sake of the country,” Lacson said in Filipino. —Reports from Vince F. Nonato, DJ Yap and Inquirer Research

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