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Cabral, DOH suffer drop in approval ratings—survey


Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral suffered a drop in approval ratings when she took over her post in the Department of Health (DOH), a recent Pulse Asia survey showed. In a survey conducted on 3,000 adults from March 21 to 28, Cabral got an approval rating of 29 percent, a 16-percentage point drop from a previous 45 percent in October 2009, when she was still secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Cabral’s disapproval ratings, meanwhile, increased to 25 percent from 20 percent in October 2009. Despite the ratings drop, Cabral remained as the highest rated of all seven Cabinet officials who were included in the survey, Pulse Asia said. Cabral took over the DOH post in January this year after then Health Secretary Francisco Duque was appointed as head of the Civil Service Commission. The survey was conducted a more than a month after Cabral was criticized by the Catholic Church for distributing condoms among flower-shop buyers on Valentine’s Day this year. DOH, too The DOH, as a whole, also suffered a slight drop in approval ratings during the same period, the Pulse Asia survey revealed. The health department got a 65 percent approval rating in Pulse Asia’s latest survey, a three-percentage point decline from a previous rating of 68 percent in October 2009. The DOH, however, remained as the second highest-rated government agency next to the Department of Education (DepEd), the survey showed. The DSWD and the Department of Justice also registered slight drops in approval ratings in the March 2010 Pulse Asia survey. The Pulse Asia survey has a margin of error of plus-or-minus two percent and has a confidence level of 95 percent.—JV, GMANews.TV