Vice President Sara Duterte maintained a 20-percentage-point trust lead over President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in September, with more than half of Filipinos expressing strong trust in her compared with just over a third for the President, according to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey released Tuesday.
The findings came as Marcos’ net satisfaction rating fell further into negative territory and self-rated poverty climbed nationwide, presenting a difficult public-opinion backdrop for the administration.
In the survey conducted from 21 to 27 September, 56 percent of respondents said they had “much trust” in Duterte, down slightly from 57 percent in June.
Marcos, meanwhile, registered 36 percent, up from 34 percent in the previous survey.
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Despite the two-percentage-point improvement, Marcos remained substantially behind Duterte, whose trust rating was 20 points higher than his.
The results showed that the president continued to trail the vice president in the survey’s measure of public trust.
Duterte recorded her strongest showing in Mindanao, where 87 percent of respondents said they had “much trust” in her, while 4 percent said they had “little trust.”
The results came amid Duterte’s ongoing impeachment proceedings.
Stratbase group president and CEO Victor Andres “Dindo” Manhit said the findings indicated that both leaders would continue to face scrutiny over issues involving them and their respective families.
The survey measured respondents’ trust in the two officials using a scale ranging from “very much” and “somewhat much” to varying degrees of little trust, indecision, or having never heard or read anything about the personality.
The results on trust followed a separate September SWS survey showing that Marcos’ net satisfaction rating had declined by four points to -11, from -7 in June.
Only 35 percent of Filipinos said they were satisfied with Marcos’ performance, while 46 percent were dissatisfied and 20 percent were undecided. The resulting negative rating indicated that dissatisfaction outpaced satisfaction during the survey period.
The trust and satisfaction findings were based on the same 21-27 September survey period, which involved face-to-face interviews with 1,500 adults nationwide. The national margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points.
Meanwhile, a separate SWS report released Tuesday showed that the proportion of Filipino families identifying themselves as poor rose to 55 percent in September, from 49 percent in June.
The estimated number of self-rated poor families increased to 16.8 million from 13.6 million over the same period. Self-rated food poverty also rose, with 44 percent of families saying they were poor based on the food they ate, up from 36 percent in June.
The median monthly household budget that self-rated poor families said they needed to avoid being considered poor increased to P15,000 from P14,000, while the median amount they said they still lacked rose to P6,000 from P5,000.