Pulso Intelligence: nearly half of Filipinos call the trial unfair, want Duterte acquitted

Manila, Philippines - October 08, 2026 - Seven weeks of nationwide polling by Pulso Intelligence show that public opinion on the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte has barely moved since August, despite a series of developments that were expected to shift the public sentiment. The share who would vote not guilty went from 48.5 to 49.0 percent, giving acquittal a lead of 15.6 points, the widest of the series. The share who would vote guilty stood at 34.3 percent in the first wave and 33.4 percent in the seventh, and never rose above 36.3 percent in between.

The Pulso tracker comprises seven national samples fielded weekly from August 10 to September 27, 2026, weighted to the COMELEC 2025 voter profile. In late August, the Tulfo brothers questioned the Office of the Vice President over 122 million pesos in confidential funds. In mid September, the Ombudsman filed graft complaints that dominated the news. On September 23, the Senate voted 13 to 1 to lower the number of votes needed to convict from 16 to 14. The Anti Money Laundering Council figures, first disclosed to the House in April, circulated throughout and were presented in court last week as 4.4 billion pesos in covered and suspicious transactions.

None of this registered in the verdict numbers. The confidential funds coverage briefly enlarged the undecided middle to 19.1 percent. The week of the Ombudsman complaints, guilty sentiment moved by less than a point, and the week the Senate lowered the threshold it fell 2.1 points to its lowest reading of the series. If the public simply needed more evidence, seven weeks of trial have not borne that out.

What did move was the public's view of the trial itself. The share of Filipinos who consider the Senate's conduct of the trial unfair rose in every wave, from 36.0 percent to 48.7 percent, while the share calling it fair fell to 22.1 percent. The undecided middle on this question shrank from 39.0 percent to 27.8 percent, and nearly all of that movement went to the unfair side. Weekly following of the trial held at 28 to 29 percent throughout, so these views come from people who were paying attention.

The senator judge ratings follow the same pattern. Senator Chiz Escudero led the scorecard for six waves and fell to fourth in the seventh, immediately after the threshold vote in which he cast the lone dissent. Senators Bong Go and Robin Padilla, who held the minority position, moved into first and second place at 2.96 and 2.95 on a five point scale. Senator Raffy Tulfo lost more ground than any senator, falling from 2.80 to 2.49, most of it around his questioning of the confidential funds. Among respondents who favor acquittal, Senator Mark Villar fell from 3.09 to 2.78 the week he joined the majority on the threshold vote. Senators who defended the higher conviction bar gained ground; those who made conviction easier, or presided over the court that did, lost it.

Whether the AMLC testimony changes any of this will show in the next wave, but the record gives little reason to expect it. Each earlier disclosure was called a turning point, and each left the guilty share within a few points of where it started. Most Filipinos appear to have settled their view of the case before the Senate began hearing it, and the trial's main effect so far has been to convince nearly one in two of them that it is not being conducted fairly.

Full reports are available from Pulso Intelligence.