THE prosecution has drawn broader public support than the defense in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, though the two sides remain closely matched, based on a non-commissioned Tangere survey taken from July 7 to 10.
Politically neutral Filipinos, who made up 27 percent of those polled, showed the deepest hesitation. A clear majority of this group, 62 percent, had not settled on which side argued its case more effectively. The rest divided evenly, with 19 percent leaning toward the prosecution and an identical 19 percent toward the defense.
Party loyalty proved a powerful predictor of where respondents stood. Duterte’s backers, accounting for 35 percent of the sample, sided with her defense team at a rate of 60 percent, with the balance undecided. A mirror-image pattern appeared among those aligned with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., former vice president Leni Robredo and the Liberal Party, who together formed 38 percent of respondents. In that camp, 60 percent endorsed the prosecution while 40 percent held back.
Geography shaped the outcome as well. Voters in Metro Manila and elsewhere in Luzon gave the prosecution 33 percent against 29 percent for the defense. The picture reversed in Mindanao, where 34 percent stood behind Duterte’s lawyers and 27 percent behind the prosecution. Uncertainty ran highest in the Visayas, where 52 percent had reached no conclusion; the decided minority split narrowly, 25 percent for the prosecution and 23 percent for the defense.
Nationally, the prosecution edged ahead with 32 percent approval to the defense’s 30 percent. The largest bloc, 38 percent, stayed on the fence or declined to judge while testimony continued. Analysts reading the numbers see a public increasingly weighing the arguments and proof laid out in court rather than reacting on instinct.
Respondents also assessed how Sen. Francis Escudero has run the impeachment court as its presiding officer. Satisfaction reached 58 percent, against 25 percent who voiced disapproval, with the critics drawn mostly from Duterte’s supporters.
The poll reached 1,200 people nationwide through a mobile application, relying on stratified random quota sampling. Its margin of error stands at ±2.77 percentage points within a 95 percent confidence level. Respondents were distributed across regions at 12 percent from the National Capital Region, 23 percent from Northern Luzon, 22 percent from Southern Luzon, 20 percent from the Visayas and 23 percent from Mindanao.
