Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s net satisfaction rating fell by 19 percentage points in the Social Weather Station’s second quarter 2024 poll, to +44 from +63, the most significant drop since May 2022, when she was elected to office.
While she continues to enjoy a high net satisfaction rating of +73 from her political stronghold in Mindanao, the slight drop of +7 from a very high +80 is a noteworthy change.
Her ratings also dropped in Metro Manila, Luzon, and the Visayas, particularly in the balance of Luzon, where her ratings declined by +26.
In the same second quarter survey, the President’s first cousin, Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, and Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo’s ratings showed improvement, at +29 and +32, respectively.
Senate President Francis Escudero, who was included in the survey for the first time, received a net rating of +47, higher than the Vice President’s.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s net satisfaction rating rose by +7 to +27 in the second quarter.
While the president’s and the rest of the country’s top officials’ satisfaction ratings improved, only Sara’s rating dropped, and it dipped big time.
The SWS said there were 1,500 adult respondents in the face-to-face, non-commissioned opinion poll conducted between June 23 and July 1.
Political observers say Sara’s departure from the Department of Education in June could be one of the factors in the decline in her ratings.
But, it is more likely that, as in other opinion polls, Filipinos have always supported any sitting administration and frowned upon those criticizing it.
Sara started criticizing the Marcos government after her breakaway from the “uniteam” alliance that elected them into office in May 2022.
She has offered herself as an alternative and led an opposition faction, which included allies and loyalists of her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte.
Her coalition, however, has been shrinking as many politicians have started to jump ship and joined the president’s small political party — Partido Federal.
The Nacionalista Party of billionaire Manny Villar was the latest to fuse with the president’s party.
Speaker Romualdez’s Lakas-CMD, billionaire Enrique Razon’s NUP, and the Nationalist People’s Coalition of the late tycoon Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco, had already joined the administration coalition as Marcos planned to put up a “big tent” to capture the mid-term elections in 2025.
Duterte’s former allies — Jose Alvarez of Palawan, Gwendolyn Garcia of Cebu, and Sen. Francis Tolentino had left the former president’s PDP party.
The other half of PDP, which has the original Lakas ng Bayan (Laban), led by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, has opposed the Duterte faction. Pimentel claimed the Duterte camp hijacked the political party in 2016.
The bleeding in the Dutertes’ political camp could affect the chances of Sara winning the 2028 presidential elections against a more populist candidate like Sen. Raffy Tulfo.
The Tulfo brand has gained a huge following after independent opinion polls showed his two brothers — Erwin and Ben — topping the senatorial surveys for the 2025 elections.
Sara’s attitude and behavior as a vice president in the face of crisis could also affect her popularity, especially when she traveled to Germany at the height of a weather disturbance that submerged the capital and surrounding provinces.
Her tantrums also exposed the weakness of her character when she chose to pick a fight with the head of the Philippine National Police over the recall of her security detail.
Why would Sara fret over the reduction of her police escorts when she has over 300 soldiers and police protecting her.
The number is three times that of past vice presidents, like Maria Leonor Robredo, who only had 78 security escorts.
She had also criticized Marcos for budget mismanagement and the perennial floods in the Davao region.
But she forgot that the Department of Education, which she used to head, has the most significant allocation of nearly P1 trillion and that the Dutertes have been in power in Davao City since the late 1980s and could have solved the flooding problem a long time ago.
She also might have forgotten that her brother, Congressman Paolo Duterte, got more than P50 billion in public works allocation in the last administration.
It is more than enough to remedy the flooding in the city.
Sara’s complaints and criticisms did not stick because these issues could return to her and her family.
However, Sara and her family would continue to create noise and agitate their followers, believing the Dutertes have enough support to oust Marcos from power.
The Dutertes have a game plan. They want a Gloria Macapagal Arroyo political scenario.
When Arroyo was vice president from 1998 to 2001, she forced President Joseph Estrada to resign in less than four years and made her eligible to run for re-election in 2004.
Sara apparently wanted to follow Arroyo’s footsteps so she could run again in 2028.
The President still has one trump card against the Dutertes. He can extradite Rodrigo Duterte and some police officials to the Netherlands if the International Criminal Court (ICC) requests it once a warrant of arrest has been issued for crimes against humanity.
Who knows, Sara might be included in the case after a former Davao City policeman, Arturo Lascanas, implicated her in the brutal and bloody drug war when she was mayor from 2010 to 2013.
The Dutertes’ political fortune has changed. It has gone south, and Sara’s dream of becoming president might be slipping.
0 Comments