Publicus Asia dropped its PAHAYAG First Quarter 2026 results on April 1, 2026. Survey conducted March 21 to 24. 1,509 registered voters. Both Marcos and Sara are down.

Both of them. At the same time.

For a firm founded by a known DDS operator — one who publicly insists she isn't — that's either remarkable honesty or a very deliberate message.

WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY

President Marcos' approval rating dropped to 19 percent. His trust rating fell to 13 percent.

Thirteen percent.

Out of every 100 Filipinos, only 13 say they trust the sitting president.

VP Sara Duterte remains the highest-rated official in the Publicus sample, but her numbers are bleeding too. Approval down to 28 percent from 34 percent. Trust down to 26 percent from 31 percent.

Publicus frames Marcos' drop around three main factors: the flood control accountability scandal, the ICC arrest and transfer of Rodrigo Duterte despite the Philippines' withdrawal from the Rome Statute, and fuel prices driven by Middle East conflict. Each factor was cited by between 16 and 23 percent of respondents who expressed distrust.

For Sara, three factors as well: the four impeachment complaints filed against her, cited by 33 percent; developments in her father's ICC case at 15 percent; and Sara's own public statement expressing regret for supporting Marcos in 2022, also at 15 percent.

A sitting vice president openly regretting her own presidential endorsement is not a minor data point. It is a political rupture wearing the face of an admission.

THE TIQUIA CONTRADICTION

Here's what the headline doesn't show you.

Malou Tiquia, founder of Publicus Asia, has spent months on air defending Sara's political durability. As recently as February 2026, she was arguing that Sara held a strong base in the Visayas, the kind of numbers that give any candidate structural staying power in a multi-candidate race. The argument was consistent: Sara's support is geographic and emotional, and it survives Manila noise.

Then her firm publishes a survey putting Sara's trust at 26 percent.

Tiquia's own public commentary and her firm's own data are now pointing in opposite directions. She built the instrument. She made the predictions. When the instrument undercuts the predictions, that tension belongs in the conversation.

There's also a March 8, 2026 analysis where Tiquia described Sara as a "front runner" for 2028 after her early declaration, someone who redefined herself from defendant to candidate. She was careful to note it wasn't a certainty. But the directional argument was clear: Sara is competitive.

And looking at the same survey that produced the 26 percent trust figure, one detail quietly supports Tiquia's position. Sara leads all officials in the survey's emotional profiling, associated with bravery by 42 percent of respondents — far exceeding any other trait cited for any official across the board. Marcos' top trait is "concern for Filipinos" at only 17 percent. Trust numbers and emotional identification are measuring different things. That gap is why the base-durability argument doesn't fully collapse even when the headline numbers fall.

So which reading holds? Publicus shows Sara's trust at 26 percent. Tiquia's own commentary says Sara's base is structurally intact. Nobody in mainstream coverage is asking her to reconcile that.

THE IMPEACHMENT VARIABLE

Pulse Asia's February 2025 survey on the impeachment showed something more layered than the headline suggests. Forty-five percent of Filipinos opposed the filing against Sara. Twenty-six percent supported it. Mindanao was at 88 percent opposition. Metro Manila was split.

By March 2026, Pulse Asia had Sara at 54 percent national trust. Among those who distrust her, the top reason was corruption allegations, cited by over 51 percent. In Mindanao, among the small minority there who do distrust Sara, 90.7 percent of that sub-group cited corruption as their reason. That is not 90 percent of all Mindanao respondents. It is 90 percent of an already small group.

The people turning against Sara, wherever they are, are turning because of a specific corruption narrative. The corruption frame is the driver, not general fatigue or impeachment theater.

Publicus' online panel cannot capture that regional fracture. The sample skews toward connected, urban voters. The result is a national trust figure that looks like a collapse when it may be something more contained: Sara losing NCR and urban class opinion while holding the provincial vote that actually decides presidential elections.

THE "NO OPINION" SILENCE

Pulse Asia's Q1 2026 survey recorded 20 percent of respondents as undecided on Sara's trustworthiness. Publicus' own Q4 2025 executive summary noted that "no opinion" responses tend to increase when political conflict intensifies.

A trust score that drops because people turned actively against Sara is a different political condition from one that drops because people went quiet. One is erosion. The other is disengagement. Disengagement can reverse quickly, especially once an impeachment trial gives a politician a platform to respond in real time and on camera.

THE COLLAPSE NOBODY IS HEADLINING

The survey is not only about Marcos and Sara.

74 percent of respondents are pessimistic about the next quarter, up from 58 percent the previous quarter. Only 26 percent remain optimistic. At the household level, 36 percent expect their financial situation to worsen — more than double last year's 17 percent. This is not political noise. These are people scared about their lives.

And the leaders they're watching aren't helping. The Senate sits at 25 percent approval and 14 percent trust. The House at 23 percent approval and 13 percent trust. Both chambers of Congress are underwater with the very public they claim to represent.

Put all of that next to Marcos at 13 percent trust and Sara at 26 percent.

A separate Pulse Asia survey showed 66 percent of Mindanao respondents saying they didn't expect the Senate to be fair in the impeachment. Forty percent of Metro Manila agreed. The public is watching a trial conducted by a body most of them distrust, against an official most of them still trust more than that body.

Not just a ratings story. A legitimacy story.

WHAT THIS SURVEY IS ALSO DOING IN 2028

"2026 is a determinant year for the 2028 elections." Tiquia, January 2026.

A survey released April 1, 2026, showing both major 2028 contenders declining, is not just a current events document. It is a 2028 positioning document.

And buried inside the same survey is something that doesn't make the TV graphics: Bam Aquino sits at 59 percent net favorable, with 30 percent describing him as "very favorable." Kiko Pangilinan and Risa Hontiveros both post 50 percent net favorable ratings. The opposition isn't just hovering anymore. They are consolidating favorability inside the same document that shows Marcos and Sara declining.

Lower Marcos numbers suppress his machine's credibility heading into midterm jockeying. Lower Sara numbers give her opponents a data point to cite when arguing she is beatable. And the opposition's rising favorability, appearing in the same release, tells every political figure considering 2028: there is room, and the ground is already shifting.

The survey measures opinion. The release shapes it. Tiquia has been in this business long enough to know both things at once.

THE INSTRUMENT AS A CHARACTER

Publicus uses a purposive sample of registered voters randomly drawn from PureSpectrum's online panel, a US-based market research platform operating through a Singapore office, with a pool of around 200,000 Filipino respondents.

These are people with internet access, smartphones, and enough spare time to complete incentivized surveys.

That is not the same as going barangay to barangay with face-to-face interviews, which is what Pulse Asia, SWS, and OCTA do. Their samples reach fisherfolk, farmers, market vendors, and voters without stable internet connections. That's where most of the Philippines lives. That's where most votes come from.

When Publicus records Sara at 26 percent trust and Pulse Asia records her at 54 percent in overlapping time periods, the gap is not noise. It is the difference between a methodology that reaches the full Philippines and one that reaches a specific slice of it. That distinction almost never makes it into the TV coverage.

READ THE DATA, BUT KNOW WHO BUILT THE INSTRUMENT

A DDS-linked pollster — one who publicly says she isn't DDS — releases numbers that hurt both Marcos and Sara, right as Sara formally enters the 2028 conversation, right as the impeachment trial gains momentum, right as Tiquia's own commentary is saying Sara's base is structurally durable, right as opposition senators post their strongest favorability numbers in years.

You can read that generously. Publicus is showing independence, releasing honest numbers even when they complicate the political world their founder spent a decade serving.

You can also read it the other way.

Sino ang natutulungan?

At ang mas mahirap na tanong: bakit ngayon?

The numbers are real. The methodology is limited. The timing is deliberate. And the founder is not a passive observer. Malou Tiquia is a political strategist who understands that releasing a survey is itself a political act.

Read the data. But don't let the headline number do all the thinking for you.

SOURCES:

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46. LinkedIn — Malou Tiquia profile. https://www.linkedin.com/in/maloutiquia

47. ACPC Asia — Malou Tiquia speaker profile. https://acpc.asia/acpc22/speakers/malou-tiquia/