A Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey released on Thursday, Feb. 12, found that 27 percent of adult Filipinos said they have personally witnessed or experienced some form of cheating in a relationship, while 72 percent said they have not.

The survey asked respondents: “Nakasaksi o nakaranas na ba kayo mismo ng anumang uri ng pangangaliwa o pagtataksil o ‘cheating’ sa isang relasyon? Kung oo, anong klase po ito?” (Have you personally witnessed or experienced any form of infidelity or cheating in a relationship? If yes, what kind is it?)

Respondents were allowed to give multiple answers.

Among those who reported having witnessed or experienced cheating, 11 percent identified physical cheating, such as engaging in sexual or intimate activities with someone else, while another 11 percent pointed to emotional cheating, such as confiding personal problems to someone other than one’s partner or developing romantic feelings for another person without a physical relationship.

Other forms cited included cybercheating at 6 percent, such as secretly chatting with other people or maintaining social media accounts without a partner’s knowledge, and object cheating at 6 percent, such as giving excessive attention to games, mobile phones, or other material objects at the expense of one’s partner.

Financial cheating, such as hiding luxury purchases or debts from a partner, was cited by 5 percent, while micro-cheating, including using affectionate terms like “baby,” “honey,” or “love” for someone other than one’s partner or concealing one’s relationship status, was mentioned by 4 percent.

Those who reported experiencing two or more types of cheating were classified under combined cheating, accounting for 8 percent of responses.

The same set of surveys also found mixed views on whether trust can be rebuilt after infidelity, with 43 percent saying trust can still be restored, 36 percent saying it cannot, and 19 percent saying they were undecided.

The Fourth Quarter 2025 Social Weather Survey was conducted from Nov. 24 to 30, 2025, through face-to-face interviews with 1,200 adults nationwide, with 300 respondents each from Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.

The survey has a margin of error of ±3 percent for national results and ±6 percent for each area.