President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte recorded “big majority” approval and trust scores in the March 2023 OCTA survey results released on Wednesday, April 19.

According to the OCTA’s “Tugon ng Masa” survey conducted from March 24 to 28, 80 percent of Filipinos continue to express satisfaction with President Marcos’ performance, while 83 percent still have confidence in him.

Meanwhile, Vice President Duterte scored an 84 percent approval rating and 87 percent trust rating.

“It must be noted that the general public opinion regarding the performance and trustworthiness of the President and the Vice-President remains essentially constant between the OCTA Research Tugon ng Masa nationwide surveys conducted last October 2022 and its latest survey in March 2023,” OCTA said.

Comparative Performance Ratings of Top Government Officials based on the March 24-28, 2023 survey conducted by OCTA Research

The approval ratings of President Marcos and Vice President Duterte were at 78 percent and 80 percent respectively in October 2022, while their trust ratings were both at 86 percent previously.

Across major geographical areas, OCTA said that the President and Vice President’s overall performance are “highly approved” by most adult Filipinos (73 percent to 89 percent and 76 percent to 92 percent, respectively).

“The President’s highest satisfaction rating is in Visayas (89 percent), while the Vice President’s highest satisfaction rating is in Mindanao (92 percent). For both the President and Vice President, NCR [National Capital Region] is the area with their lowest satisfaction rating (73 percent and 76 percent, respectively),” OCTA said.

Meanwhile, the President and Vice President’s overall performance were approved by most adult Filipinos in terms of socio-economic classes (78 percent to 84 percent and 84 percent to 87 percent, respectively).

Among the socio-economic classes, the President has the highest satisfaction rating of adult Filipinos in Class ABC (84 percent) and the lowest in Class E (78 percent).

The percentages of the approval of adult Filipinos on Duterte were consistent among the socio-economic classes, OCTA said.

In terms of trust rating among the socio-economic classes, the President Marcos and Vice President Duterte’s overall figures showed that most adult Filipinos highly trust them (82 percent to 84 percent and 86 percent to 88 percent, respectively).

“Across major geographical areas, most adult Filipinos highly trust the President and Vice President (76 percent to 91 percent and 78 percent to 96 percent, respectively). The President’s highest trust rating is in Visayas (91 percent), while the Vice President’s highest trust rating is in Mindanao (96 percent),” OCTA said.

“For both the President and Vice President, NCR is the area with their lowest trust rating (76 percent and 78 percent, respectively). The ranking is similar to the performance ratings of the President and Vice President,” it added.

Other top officials register ‘bare to majority’ approval, trust ratings

During the same survey period, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri and Speaker Martin Romualdez recorded majority approval and trust ratings at 53 percent and 50 percent, and 59 percent and 55 percent, respectively.

Only Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo registered a performance and trust ratings of less than the majority at 41 percent and 39 percent, respectively.

While, the approval rating of adult Filipinos regarding the performance of the President Marcos and the Vice ­President Duterte remained essentially constant between October 2022 and March 2023, in contrast, Zubiri, Romualdez, and Gesmundo have significant changes in their respective performance ratings during this period.

“Appreciation for Senate President Zubiri’s performance declined in Balanced Luzon (-8 percentage points) and Class ABC (-12 percentage points),” OCTA said.

Meanwhile, it noted that “the approval for House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez’s performance has tremendously increased in all geographical areas and socio-economic classes.”

“Like House Speaker Romualdez, appreciation for Supreme Court Chief Justice Gesmundo’s performance has tremendously increased in all geographical areas and socio-economic classes,” it added.

OCTA also noted that the dissatisfaction of adult Filipinos is lowest with the President Marcos (6 percent) and Vice President Duterte (4 percent) and highest with Gesmundo (14 percent) among the top five government officials.

Meanwhile, the distrust of adult Filipinos is lowest in the President (4 percent) and Vice President (3 percent) and highest in Gesmundo (14 percent).

The Tugon ng Masa survey is a non-commissioned survey, which used face-to-face interviews with 1,200 adult respondents nationwide.