Raul Lambino of Sigaw ng Bayan, a charter change (Cha-Cha) proponent, seems to be baselessly arguing that majority of the Filipino wants a sweeping structural changes (through Charter change) as against to SWS survey on June 26-28 that a solid majority of 67% of all Filipino adults will vote “no” on charter change.

The Social Weather Survey of June 22-28, 2006 finds that those intending to vote “No,” if a plebiscite to approve constitutional amendments were held today, have grown to a solid majority of 67% of all Filipino adults, compared to a small majority of 56% in the previous SWS national survey of March 8-14, 2006.

Among those surveyed, only 15% had been approached to sign a petition favoring constitutional amendments. Among them there were 6.8 percentage points who signed, 7.2 percentage points who did not sign, and a one-point balance who would not say if they signed or not.
–www.sws.org.ph

Lambino used the nine million Filipinos that have already signed for the peoples initiative as a proof that “majority of our people wants a charter change”.

Charter change proponent Sigaw ng Bayan lambasted yesterday a recent survey by Social Weather Stations (SWS) showing that more Filipinos are against Cha-cha or Charter change.

Sigaw spokesman Raul Lambino said more than nine million Filipinos have already signed up for the people’s initiative as a mode of amending the Constitution and effecting a shift to a parliamentary system of government.

“We do not know where SWS is coming from, and what kind of social weather it is tracking because an overwhelming majority of our people wants sweeping structural changes (through Charter change) — and they want it now,” he said.’
- The Philippine Star 07/16/2006

Charter-change proponents may have gathered the enough number of signatories to conduct a constitutional amendment or charter change but it doesn’t mean that majority of the Filipino wants a charter change.

The nine million Filipinos, as Sigaw ng Bayan claimed that already signed for the peoples initiative, only represents 21% of the total number of registered voters (http://www.comelec.gov.ph/stats/2004stats.html) or 10% of the total population (http://www.census.gov.ph/).

Definitely, the nine million signatories for the people’s initiative does not constitute to the majority of the 85 million Filipino people.