MANILA, Philippines — Both President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte received high approval ratings in the latest survey by polling firm Pulse Asia, with 78 percent and 83 percent of respondents, respectively, expressing satisfaction with their work.
Reports released by Pulse Asia on Wednesday showed that only five percent of the 1,200 respondents interviewed from March 15 to 19 disapproved of Marcos’ performance for the first seven months that he was President.
Similarly, only four percent were dissatisfied with Duterte’s tenure as Vice President.
Other high-ranking officials of the government got relatively good scores, with Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri and House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez both getting a 51 percent approval rating, and Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo getting a 43 percent approval rating.
Only 10 percent disapproved of Zubiri’s work, 12 percent for Romualdez, and 15 percent for Gesmundo.
“Bare to big majority approval ratings are recorded by the President (78%), the Vice-President (83%), Senate President Juan Miguel F. Zubiri (51%), and House Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez (51%) in Pulse Asia Research’s March 2023 nationwide survey,” Pulse Asia said.
“In the case of Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo, basically the same percentages of Filipino adults either approve of his quarterly performance (43%) or are ambivalent on the matter (41%). Levels of disapproval for these officials’ performance range from 4% for the Vice-President to 15% for the Supreme Court Chief Justice,” it added.
Marcos and Duterte — running-mates in the 2022 national elections — got high approval ratings across all locales, especially in Visayas and Mindanao. Marcos had a 93 percent approval rating in Visayas and 87 percent in Mindanao, while Duterte got a 97 percent approval rating in Visayas, and 98 percent in Mindanao.
Approval ratings for Marcos were lowest in the National Capital Region (NCR) at 68 percent, followed by 70 percent in Luzon. For Duterte, it was lowest in Luzon at 72 percent, followed by 76 percent in NCR.
Disapproval ratings, albeit only a small percentage, are also the highest for both officials at NCR and Luzon. Marcos got a seven percent disapproval rating for NCR and Luzon, while Duterte got six and seven percent in the respective areas.
Pulse Asia said the current ratings of Marcos and Duterte are not a big departure from the results of the survey last November, where the President got an 82 percent approval rating, and the Vice President an 84 percent rating.
“Public opinion regarding the performance of the President and the Vice-President remains essentially constant between November 2022 and March 2023. In contrast, Senate President Zubiri, House Speaker Romualdez, and Supreme Court Chief Justice Gesmundo experience significant changes in their respective performance ratings during this period,” Pulse Asia said.
“Appreciation for Senate President Zubiri’s performance eases in Class ABC (-25 percentage points) while ambivalence on the matter becomes more pronounced in the same subgrouping (+22 percentage points),” they added.
Pulse Asia said that the survey results were obtained using face-to-face interviews with 1,200 adults. The polling firm said they are maintaining a ± 2.8% error margin at the 95% confidence level for national ratings, while ± 5.7% margin of error is maintained for the locales.
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