Duterte, Robredo, Sotto still enjoy Pinoy majority's approval, trust —Pulse Asia

Majority of Filipinos continued to approve of and trust President Rodrigo Duterte, Vice President Leni Robredo and Senate President Vicente Sotto III, while a "big plurality" of Filipinos were critical of House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

This was according to the latest Pulse Asia nationwide survey (for December 2018) on the Performance and Trust Ratings of Key Government Officials, conducted December 14 – 21, 2018.

Pulse Asia said Duterte registered the "only notable movement" in the ratings as his approval rating increased to 81 from 75 in its September 2018 survey, and his trust rating went up to 76 from 72 in September. Both ratings are the highest among the officials.

Robredo and Sotto's latest approval ratings actually went up to 62 and 74, respectively, from 61 and 73 in September. The survey's margin of error, however, is ± 2.3% error margin at the 95% confidence level.

Meanwhile, the Vice President and the Senate President's trust ratings remained unchanged at 56 and 66, respectively.

Sotto attributed his high ratings to the performance of the whole Senate.

“It’s most probably the performance of the Senate and our shepherding that gets the approval and the trust of our people,” he said.

“We will always be independent and sensitive to the pulse of our countrymen,” Sotto added.

Arroyo ratings

While the three highest officials in the country enjoyed high marks, Arroyo was on the other end of the spectrum, with a plurality of the respondents distrusting (45 percent small/no trust) and not approving  (43 percent disapproval) of her performance.

"Ambivalence on the matter of trusting or distrusting these officials is most marked toward [Arroyo] at 34%," Pulse Asia said.

In Metro Manila, distrust on Arroyo went as high as a majority 52 percent.

The House Speaker was not bothered with her ratings.

“Those trust ratings are not new to me.  Remember I was pilloried very much when I was President so I haven’t done much to overcome that because I just have to do my work,” she said when sought for comment.

“My thrust is to concentrate on my work. I already said it the last time, I am not a stranger to those kinds of ratings,” Arroyo added.

Meanwhile, the survey revealed that practically the same majority approval and trust ratings are obtained by the Senate (69% and 65%, respectively), the House of Representatives (66% and 64%, respectively), and the Supreme Court (64% and 62%, respectively) at the national level.

The nationwide survey is based on a sample of 1,800 representative adults 18 years old and above. — Amita Legaspi/ MDM/ LDF, GMA News