Among those surveyed, only 15 percent had been approached to sign a petition favoring Cha-cha, of whom, 6.8 percent signed, 7.2 percent did not sign and a one-point balance refused to say if they signed or not.

The survey also revealed that the roughly 7 percent proportion of the respondents who signed, even in combination with the 8 percent “no-answers,” assuming that they were among the signatories, are statistically below the constitutional minimum requirement of 12 percent of the national electorate for constitutional amendments to be pushed through a people’s initiative.

It also said the “no” vote leads in all areas of the country, with 60 percent of the middle-to-upper ABC classes, 68 percent of the ‘masa’ or D class and 66 percent of the very poor E class intending to vote no to Cha-cha. Even among those who admitted having signed the petition, the no vote outscored the ‘yes’ votes 48 to 46 percent.

According to the survey, the people’s initiative movement appears to be strongest in the Visayas, where 21 percent of the respondents said their signatures were solicited. Signature solicitation rate in both Mindanao and Metro Manila was pegged at 16 percent while the balance of Luzon registered 12 percent.

The survey also revealed that voters’ feelings about the Commission on Elections (Comelec) continue to be mixed, with 34 percent of respondents agreeing as opposed to the 37 percent who disagreed that ‘the Comelec can be trusted to honestly count the votes of the people in a plebiscite to ratify a new Constitution,’ which is statistically unchanged from the March SWS survey’s finding that 30 percent still agreed with the Comelec while 34 percent disagreed with the poll body’s handling of a plebiscite to amend the Charter.

The survey was done using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults divided into random samples of 300 each in Metro Manila, the Balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.