History of polling trust and mistrust

Recently, polling firm OCTA released its July survey on trust and performance ratings. Since 1986, major pollsters SWS and Pulse Asia have consistently tracked officials’ ratings, especially the president and vice president. OCTA’s results were doubted for being anomalous compared to SWS and Pulse Asia, both seen as reliable and consistent. In their latest surveys, Marcos and VP Sara showed lower trust ratings, but OCTA reported almost double jumps for Marcos and Speaker Romualdez --an unprecedented result. Most observers trust SWS and Pulse Asia more due to their longer history, stable methods, and transparent data. OCTA is still new and building credibility. Before the 1980s, scientific surveys were rare.

Before 1985, reliable rating for public officials was through national elections. The first presidential and vice presidential election under in 1935 installed President Manuel L. Quezon, who won with nearly 68%, and Vice President Sergio Osmeña, who garnered 85%. In 1941, they were re-elected with 82% and 92%, respectively. In 1946, Manuel Roxas won the presidency with 54%, and Elpidio Quirino as vice president with 51%. Quirino won in 1949 with barely 51%, while Fernando Lopez secured the vice presidency with a similar margin.

Ramon Magsaysay’s win in 1953 was 69%, with Carlos P. Garcia’s 63% as vice president. Garcia, in 1957, won the presidency with 41%, the lowest up to that time, while Diosdado Macapagal secured the vice presidency with 46.5%. Macapagal in 1961 won the presidency with 55%, with Emmanuel Pelaez as vice president with 51%. Ferdinand Marcos, won in 1965 with 52% and 62% in 1969. Marcos’s running mate, Fernando Lopez, won the vice presidency three times, including a 68% mandate in his last term.

After Martial Law, in 1981, Marcos won with 88%, in an election which the opposition boycotted. The 1986 snap election showed different results; the official Comelec figures showed Marcos as the winner, but election watchdog Namfrel showed Cory Aquino winning with 52.29% against Marcos’ 47.71%. In 1992, Fidel V. Ramos won with just 23.6%, the lowest in Philippine history, while Joseph Estrada as vice president with 33%. In 1998, Estrada won with 39.9%, while the vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, won with 49.5%. In 2004, Arroyo won a full term with 39.99%, while Noli de Castro won the vice presidency with 49.8%. The 2010 election saw Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III with a 42.1% victory. His vice president, Jejomar Binay, won with 41.6%. In 2016, Rodrigo Duterte won with 39%, while Leni Robredo narrowly won the vice presidency with 35%. In 2022, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. won the presidency with 58.8%, the first majority mandate in decades, while Sara Duterte scored even higher at 61.5% as vice president. Theirs marked the strongest electoral mandate since the days of Quezon and Osmeña in 1941.

Pre-EDSA electoral mandates were generally higher because of the country's two-party system. However, the 1987 Constitution allowed for a multi-party system in the Philippines, giving all post-1992 presidents and vice presidents plurality (but not majority) mandates. It was only in 2022 when Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte received the strongest mandates; most experts agree that Sara's were through sheer vote share and extraordinary post-election popularity, while Marcos Jr. through both majority and high trust.

Mandate combines electoral share and public trust. Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte held both, while Duterte in 2016 turned a modest plurality into a powerful mandate with the highest recorded 91% approval rating in Philippine history. Vice presidents often enjoy stronger mandates than presidents, as seen with Sara Duterte, Noli de Castro, and Gloria Arroyo, who all won with near or actual majorities and frequently outperformed presidents in surveys. Yet approval ratings can be manipulated through biased questions, skewed samples, strategic timing, selective release of results, or misleading reporting --even valid polls can be presented in ways that distort reality.

So who has the actual support of the Filipino people?