What midyear poll surveys reflect

Let us revisit the public opinion polls conducted in June this year by Pulse Asia and SWS on the satisfaction, performance and trust ratings of an incumbent President and an incumbent Vice President as if they were the only two choices leading to the 2028 elections.

First, on satisfaction, Vice President Sara Duterte logged 58-percent satisfied, while President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. got 38 percent, without mention of the corresponding percentages of the undecided and dissatisfied.

Second, on performance, Sara obtained 56-percent approval, while FM Jr. received 29 percent, again without reflecting percentages of the undecided and disapproving.

Third, on trust, Sara scored 58 percent in Pulse Asia and 57 percent in SWS, while FM Jr. scored 28 percent and 34 percent, respectively. On purpose, we didn’t factor in the percentages of the undecided and distrustful, nor that of “much trust” and “little trust.”

Given these percentages, it would appear that Sara is comfortably ahead in the trifecta, or in terms of satisfaction, performance, and trust. The satisfaction rating as a criterion is the handiwork particularly of SWS, whose respondents consisted of those aged 18 and above, done via face-to-face interviews to gauge either satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the performance of a key public official in his/her role.

It must be pointed out that net satisfaction was computed by the percentage of satisfied minus dissatisfied, hence, in the case of FM Jr., 38 percent reflected satisfied, while 45 percent were dissatisfied, which accordingly resulted in a -7 (graded as neutral), while that of Sara was a +31 (graded as good) based on 58 percent satisfied minus 26 percent dissatisfied.

No one should be too quick to dismiss FM Jr.’s ratings as having lost all hope of recovery, given that across all criteria, the undecided was an average of 19.5 percent, while that of Sara was 15.25 percent. Objectively, the percentages under dissatisfaction, disapproval, distrust, and little trust for FM Jr. logged an average of 47.75 percent, while that for Sara was 27.25 percent, thereby giving the latter a 20.5-percentage-point lead.

Come to think of it, since FM Jr. had a relatively higher percentage of undecided than Sara, it can reflect a potential reservoir that could tilt the balance in favor of the President, particularly in the light of contemporary developments.

By every interpretive analysis, it simply means that Sara’s apparent lead is still vulnerable or surmountable precisely because, clearly, as President, FM Jr. will always enjoy a comparative advantage.

Whatever the variance may be, it can still hold water, so to speak. Nothing is certain until the numbers can play the absolute. After all, what does the book The Prince teach politicians confronted with the problem of glory and survival? It “justifies the use of immoral means, and that it is permissible to use force, rather than law to achieve such ends.”

Of course, no one should acquiesce to the country’s leader reducing the government to an autocracy, whatever inherent pros and cons this may have. As one carefully looks at the SWS midyear survey in terms of net personal optimism, it would show that the same has improved from +23 in March 2026 to +40 in June 2026.

What SWS targeted to generate input from focused on questions of “expected changes in personal quality-of-life in the next 12 months” and “changes in personal quality-of-life from last year to the present.”

As SWS found, “48 percent of adult Filipinos are expecting their quality of life to improve in the next 12 months (termed by SWS as “optimists”), 31 percent saying it will stay the same (“no change”), and 8 percent saying it will worsen (“pessimists”),” with a remaining 12 percent that did not answer.

Be that as it may, the conclusion is one that pegs a net personal optimism score of excellent +40, said to be the highest since the excellent +41 in June of last year. Otherwise, what do surveys not tell? Economically, what rational expectations await?