Sara Duterte yet to regain high public approval as impeachment trial looms

MANILA, Philippines – Aside from an impending impeachment trial, Vice President Sara Duterte is also grappling with regaining her once-high public approval ratings, which has dropped by 44 points in the last four years.

Duterte’s first net satisfaction rating based on a Social Weather Stations survey recorded in October 2022, or four months after she assumed office, was +73. The latest SWS survey, conducted from March 24-31, 2026, but released only on May 30, showed Duterte’s net satisfaction rating at +29.

Duterte’s net satisfaction rating peaked at +77 in December 2022. The notable decline began in June 2024, when there was growing public scrutiny of the alleged misuse of confidential funds and betrayal of the public trust. Her satisfaction rating plunged to +44 from +63 in March. It has not recovered since. (LIST: The 4 articles of impeachment vs VP Sara Duterte). 

The late-March 2026 survey is a snapshot of the latest public sentiment taken just weeks after Duterte’s February 18 announcement of a 2028 presidential run, and a few months before the House of Representatives delivered a historic 257-61 vote to impeach her for the second time.

Despite this steady drop, Duterte’s net satisfaction and trust ratings remained higher than those of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. from most of 2022 to 2026, even at her lowest recorded rate in January 2025 (+15%). 

Before the Senate begins the impeachment trial on July 6, 2026, let us first revisit the approval and trust ratings of Duterte from SWS surveys conducted from 2022 to 2026.

Approval ratings

Based on SWS surveys, Duterte recorded relatively high net satisfaction ratings during her first year as vice president: +73 in October 2022 and rising to +77 in December that year. This strong performance held steady through early 2023, staying at +71 in March and +69 in June.

Her ratings declined to +57 by September 2023 before settling at +61 in December. This drop was largely attributed to the P125-million confidential funds controversy, which the Commission on Audit (COA) flagged in its report on the 2022 budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

According to the COA findings, the OVP spent P125 million in just 11 days. However, self-confessed Duterte bagman Ramil Madriaga later alleged at a House justice committee hearing on the impeachment complaints against Duterte that the funds were depleted in less than 24 hours. 

The same audit report revealed that the OVP had requested an additional budget from the Department of Budget and Management in August 2022.

Despite this initial dip, her satisfaction scores remained higher than those of Marcos and other top Philippine officials.

The real decline began in 2024 — after climbing slightly to +63 in March, her ratings plunged to +44 in June, +27 in September, and +21 by December.

On December 2, 2024, the first impeachment complaint against Duterte was filed by a coalition of various organizations, followed by a second complaint on December 4, 2024, filed by members of the House of Representatives and endorsed by the Makabayan bloc. 

The third impeachment complaint was filed by members of the clergy on December 19, 2024, and was endorsed by House Minority Leader and then-Camarines Sur 3rd District representative Gabriel Bordado.

By the first quarter of 2025 — coinciding with the build up to the first attempt to impeach her — Duterte’s numbers hit their lowest point at +15 in January of that year. This was followed by her first impeachment in February, which was archived or “killed” by the Senate impeachment court in May, and ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court on July 25, 2025.

The Vice President experienced a slow climb to +19 in February and then to +30 in April 2025, but the recovery stalled. Throughout the second half of 2025, her ratings hovered in the 20s, dropping to +22 in September.

While various rallies were held to demand accountability for multi-billion-peso flood control corruption from September to November 2025, pro-Duterte supporters organized their own protests. These demonstrations called for the release of former president Rodrigo Duterte from International Criminal Court (ICC) detention in the Hague, the Netherlands, denounced the corruption allegations against the Vice President, and called for the resignation of Marcos, resulting in a slight bump in Duterte’s satisfaction ratings to +28 in November. 

Duterte’s 2026 first-quarter ratings barely registered any significant change following her declaration to run for president on February 18. Struggling with flatlining approval and a high-stakes impeachment trial, she now faces an uphill battle to remain in office and run in the 2028 presidential election. 

Trust ratings

While Duterte’s net trust ratings have remained slightly higher than her net satisfaction rating, they followed a similarly steep downward trajectory in late 2024. From +45 in July, her net trust score dropped to +29 by September, before sliding further to +23 in December.

Mirroring her approval scores, Duterte’s public net trust hit an all-time low of +19 in January 2025. 

By February 2025, the same time the House first impeached her, Duterte’s trust ratings began to climb back to +23, reaching +32 in March. This upward trend continued throughout the rest of the year, hitting +36 in April, +37 in May, and +38 in June, before eventually settling at +25 in September and +31 in November.

Based on Rappler’s 2025 fact-checks, pro-Duterte disinformation shifted gears throughout the year. 

From January to February 2025, online false claims primarily served to shield the Vice President from mounting corruption allegations. However, for the rest of 2025 or from March to December, the narrative transitioned toward portraying her father, the former president, as a frail, elderly victim of injustice after he was arrested on March 11, 2025, and eventually detained at the ICC. 

This tactic was designed to garner public sympathy for the Duterte family, likely helping the Vice President rebound from her all-time low trust ratings (READ: Inside the pro-Duterte playbook: A year of disinformation vs ICC case).

A similar analysis of The Nerve offers an explanation for this recovery. Online claims from March 2025 revived familiar disinformation tactics that helped the Dutertes control the digital narrative.

This story will be updated with new approval and trust figures as fresh SWS polling data becomes available. – Rappler.com