It's not just a ship on a screen which sits still. There are other ships and sprites which are constantly moving, so the entire screen is being redrawn either way.
Take the example vertical shooter. Add an FPS text to it.
The enemy ships constantly move and your own ship constantly fires. So the screen is being refreshed and redrawn correctly. My phone shows 50 fps if I don't touch the screen. If I touch the screen and the ship starts to move, it drops to 35.
Even if I remove the actual moving code and just have 'Is in touch' and then have zero actions, it still drops to 35, just by touching the screen. If I HOLD a certain location, it moves back to 50fps, but if I move my finger around the screen, it drops to 35 or less (even though now your ship doesn't move because I've removed the code, but the other ships/bullets are still moving).