SWS denies Bato’s accusations: We’re not attacking the PNP

Social Weather Stations (SWS) on Tuesday denied the accusations of Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Ronald dela Rosa that the gradual release of their survey results were meant to attack the police force and the government's war against illegal drugs.

"We are not in any way attacking the PNP with our media releases. We have our own timeline that we follow regarding our releases," Vladymir Licudine, SWS director for Survey Design, Analysis and Training, told GMA News Online.

"The releases that we are doing now are more in depth than what we released last October 11. Aside from the PH results, the releases also include other demographic variables and cross tabulations of other items," Licudine added.

Dela Rosa wondered why the survey results were released bit by bit, and questioned the poll taker's reason for doing so.

"Piecemeal attack ang ginagawa nila sa amin ah. Very obvious that's piecemeal attack. Nilabas na nila ‘yan noon pa pala sa survey, ngayon dahan-dahan na naman ilalabas, question by question, which is para bang naubusan na tayo ng bala na pantira sa PNP,” Dela Rosa said.

“Ang pinagtataka ko nga lang bakit dahan-dahan nilalabas. Ibig sabihin ayaw nila pagpahingahin yung PNP? Umalis na nga kami diyan sa war on drugs, palabas pa rin kayo ng palabas ng mga question na matagal na na-settle a long time ago. What's the motive behind?" he added.

The recent SWS survey had asked respondents, "In the government’s campaign against illegal drugs, the police are (Definitely telling the truth; Probably telling the truth; Undecided if telling the truth or not; Probably not telling the truth; Definitely not telling the truth) that the suspects they killed really resisted them?"

The results showed that 37 percent of Filipinos believed that cops are not telling the truth. Seventeen percent say police are telling the truth while 45 percent are still undecided. — BM, GMA News