With the surveys conducted precisely at the time when enemies of the President were at the height of their campaign to oust her from office, such dismal results should be expected.

That they also coincided with the scandals exposed at the bungled national broadband network Senate investigations made conspicuous the bad timing of the surveys.

But all this may just be an unpredictable twist of settings and context – a vagary of fate, so to speak. The fact is, the circumstances are different but the pressures on President Arroyo are the same, all the time. When did they stop pressuring her to resign? When did they start trusting her?

Maybe that’s the reason Malacañang has not also changed its ready answer to all the criticisms against the President.

To the current survey results, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye reiterated the same line: President Arroyo remains undaunted, explaining in the usual tone that she is "more concerned about improving the economic figures than her popularity numbers."

The President, he added, will remain focused as she has always been on what needs to be done, and the priority will be improving and growing our economy because that is the only way that we can lift the other Filipinos from the poverty line."

The line is familiar, of course, because he has said it many times before and he repeated it in response to the Pulse Asia survey showing 51 percent of Filipinos disapproves of her presidential performance, and 57 percent distrusts her, taken in the third week of February, and first week of March this year, respectively.

But in another survey, conducted by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy of Hong Kong, it was learned the Philippines came out as the "most corrupt of 13 Asian countries," according to some 1,400 expatriate businessmen asked around the region.

But that’s another issue that Malacañang must learn to handle in more responsibly compelling response, otherwise the tag might remain an ugly blot on our reputation as a people.

Surely, Malacañang cannot simply ignore it and repeat the usual excuse.

One thing that must be noted in reacting to the Pulse Asia survey was the fact that it was made by no less than the Press Secretary himself and not by the other Palace spokespersons. Not that the others who speak for the President are lesser officials but that too many spokesmen in the Office of the President make the position sound trivial and so are the statements they are making in the name of the President.

Trivialities affect approval and trust ratings.