A government that wins a “very good” grade for schooling its citizens’ children yet a failing mark for taming the cost of living—that split verdict sits at the center of the latest Social Weather Stations findings, which handed the Marcos administration the lowest net satisfaction score it has posted since assuming power.
Education proved the single bright spot. Asked to rate how well the government has improved the quality of children’s schooling, respondents returned a “very good” +52, the strongest figure among the 19 areas SWS measured.
Six other functions landed in “good” territory: assistance to the poor and housing for them both at +45, job-generating policy at +42, science and technology development at +40, and food security at +32. A middle band of “moderate” scores followed, covering the defense of Philippine waters in the West Philippine Sea (+27), transparency on government projects (+26), honesty with the public (+24), public transport (+24), protection of Filipinos in Middle East danger zones (+21), and the pledge that no family goes hungry (+12).
The economy is where the assessment turned sharply against the government. Curbing inflation drew the worst score of all at -15, trailed by a -12 for keeping oil firms from exploiting fuel prices and a -10 for rooting out graft and corruption. Several other economic functions clustered near zero—prosecuting tax evaders landed at exactly net zero, tax collection at -4, addressing rising oil prices at -5, and tackling crimes against ordinary citizens at -7.
Those individual marks fed into a headline number that startled even by recent standards. The administration’s overall net satisfaction came in at a “poor” -13 in the March 24-31 polling, a 27-point collapse from the “moderate” +14 it held in November 2025.
By SWS’s own historical reckoning, the figure carries weight beyond this presidency. “This is a record-low for the Marcos Jr. administration, and the lowest in 16 years since the bad -45 in March 2010 under the Arroyo administration,” the pollster stated in the report it issued Friday, June 19.
The breakdown behind the rating showed 32 percent of adult Filipinos satisfied with overall performance against 46 percent dissatisfied, with 21 percent declining to take a side.
The First Quarter 2026 round drew on face-to-face interviews with 1,500 adults across the country, carrying margins of error of ±3 percentage points nationally, ±4 points in Balance Luzon, and ±6 points each in Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
