A significant plurality of Filipino adults (44%) were dissatisfied with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s performance in the past quarter. Between June 2025 and September 2025, his approval rating decreased by nine percentage points, according to a survey conducted by Pulse Asia.
In the latest Ulat ng Bayan poll, no geographic or socio-economic subgroup showed a majority approval rating for Marcos.
While half of the respondents in the rest of Luzon (50%) approve of his performance, substantial pluralities to overwhelming majorities in the Visayas (55%), Mindanao (83%), Class D (42%), and Class E (62%) expressed disapproval.
Similarly, Vice President Sara Duterte also experienced a decline in her approval rating from June 2025 to September 2025 in Metro Manila, which dropped by 14 percentage points. Ambivalence regarding her performance was more pronounced in Metro Manila (+13 percentage points) and the rest of Luzon (+12 percentage points).
The survey also revealed that distrust is the prevailing sentiment toward President Marcos, with 45% of respondents expressing distrust. Trust in him was higher than the level of ambivalence regarding his trustworthiness, with 34% trusting him and 21% remaining undecided.
In contrast, Vice President Duterte had a small majority trust rating of 56%. Nearly the same percentage of Filipino adults were either undecided about her trustworthiness (23%) or outright distrustful (21%).
According to Pulse Asia, these figures are almost identical to those recorded in the June 2025 Ulat ng Bayan survey, with the only significant change being a drop in the vice president’s national distrust figure by 6 percentage points.
The face-to-face survey was conducted from September 27 to 30, with 1,200 respondents aged 18 and above.
The sampling error margin is ± 2.8% at a 95% confidence level. Subnational estimates for the geographic areas covered in the survey have the following error margins at the 95% confidence level: ± 5.7% for Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
