WHAT THE PULSE ASIA SURVEY IS ACTUALLY TELLING US

Woke up early today. At 52, getting a full eight hours is a rare privilege — so when the body says it's done, you just get up.

Scanned social media. Found out Pulse Asia had released a survey.

Frustrating thing: I didn't get it in my inbox. Pulse Asia sends these to accredited media outfits. Independent bloggers, apparently, don't make the list.

So I had to rely on third-party coverage at first — headlines, Facebook reposts, the usual fragmented picture you get when a pollster drops numbers and everyone rushes to claim the stat that fits their narrative.

Here's the thing about reading surveys through other people's eyes: I don't like it.

Every take is different depending on how deep or shallow the reader goes.

Media outlets give you the horse race numbers.

Bloggers give you the angle that fits their politics.

Vloggers give you the dramatic reaction.

Most of the time, all of them give you the obvious part and leave the interesting story sitting in the tables.

I want the full raw unbridled story. So I tracked down the actual PDF straight from the source, opened every table, read through the whole thing myself.

Four things jumped at me immediately.

Not the headline numbers. Those you've already seen. Approval ratings, trust scores, the usual horse race framing.

The four things I'm talking about are underneath all of that. And when you read them together, they tell a deeper story about where this country is actually headed.

1. SHE DECLARED. NOTHING MOVED. 😂

Sara Duterte announced her 2028 presidential run. She said she already had a running mate. She said she was ready.

Then Pulse Asia came knocking on doors — literally during and right after the announcement — and the numbers said something different.

Her national approval dropped. Her trust ratings fell.

Among Class ABC, trust in her collapsed by 33 percentage points in one year. Distrust in that same class surged by 34 points.

Walang bounce. Zero surge.

A candidate who can't move her own numbers on the day she declares her biggest ambition is already in deep shit.

Sara's support in Mindanao remains enormous — 95% approval, 97% trust. That base isn't going anywhere.

But Mindanao alone doesn't win a presidential election. Luzon does.

And in the rest of Luzon, only 31% approve of her performance. Only 29% trust her.

She can run. She just can't coast.

2. THE CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS ARE STILL FOLLOWING HER

The House moved on. The senators moved on. The news cycle moved on.

Filipinos didn't.

Among the people who distrust Sara Duterte, 51.5% cite the confidential funds controversy as their primary reason.

Not her threat against the President and First Lady. Not the language she used in public. The money.

It gets more significant: among those who are still undecided about her — the persuadable middle — 51.1% say the same unresolved issue is what's keeping them from committing.

Far from being a background noise, this is the single biggest obstacle between Sara Duterte and Malacañang.

The confidential funds issue — the amounts from the Office of the Vice President and DepEd that she refused to account for in the COA hearings — was the centerpiece of her impeachment complaints. The House dismissed those complaints. But the court of public opinion hasn't closed the case.

Hindi nakakalimot ang tao.

And what makes this electorally dangerous is where it's cutting.

Class ABC — the class that shapes media narratives, that writes the opinion columns, that influences the teachers and professionals in provincial cities — is the group most exposed to coverage of this issue.

They're the ones fleeing her ratings fastest.

She has two years to answer a question she never properly answered. The survey says she can't afford to keep ignoring it.

3. FILIPINOS STOPPED BEING ANGRY ABOUT PRICES. THEY STARTED BEING ANGRY ABOUT THIEVES

Here's the number that nobody put in their headline.

Corruption as a top national concern jumped by 19 percentage points year-on-year. It's now the second-most urgent issue in the country, behind only inflation.

That shift IS the story.

For years, Filipinos ranked corruption as a concern — but always in that abstract, background way. Prices, hunger, jobs — those were the visceral, dinner-table issues. Anti-corruption was a Makati cocktail party issue.

Not anymore.

Inflation is still number one, but it dropped 10 points. The corruption concern surged. The gap is closing.

What does this mean politically? Every allegation of theft, every unexplained confidential fund, now lands harder than it would have three years ago.

The public's primary anxiety has changed from my rice is expensive to someone is stealing from me.

Those are different kinds of anger. Price anger is directed at the market, at circumstance. Corruption anger is directed at people.

In Class ABC, corruption as an urgent concern sits at 64%. In the rest of Luzon, 58%.

These are the regions and classes where Marcos is recovering — and where Sara is collapsing. The reason isn't hard to find. It's written in this one number: +19.

And no, that’s not my opinion. That’s what the numbers say.

4. THE RACE NOBODY’S WATCHING IS ALREADY CLOSE

Everyone's running the Sara versus Leni story. It's the familiar story — regionalized, class-divided, emotionally charged. It writes itself.

But the data says the more competitive race is the one people aren't watching as closely.

Sara Duterte versus Raffy Tulfo: 46 to 46.

A dead heat. Nationally. With two years still to go before a single campaign permit is filed.

Tulfo leads in the rest of Luzon, 72% to Sara's 19%.

He leads in Class ABC, 49% to her 29%.

He essentially matches her everywhere she's weakest.

And the undecided rate in this matchup — 22% among Class ABC alone — means the floor hasn't been set yet.

For Sara, the Tulfo problem is structural.

Her firewall is Mindanao, and even there, a head-to-head with Tulfo shows her winning 90-9 — still dominant, but not the near-unanimous 93% she gets against Robredo.

A Tulfo candidacy doesn't just challenge Sara. It scrambles the entire board.

The survey isn't saying Tulfo will win. It's saying the race Sara thought she had locked up isn't locked up.

WHAT ALL FOUR ARE REALLY SAYING

Put them together and a single picture emerges.

Sara Duterte enters the 2028 race as the prohibitive frontrunner — but a frontrunner with a ceiling, a scandal, and a challenger who fits exactly into the space she can't reach.

Marcos, meanwhile, is recovering — but recovering on the wrong issues. His best scores are on OFW welfare and territorial defense, concerns that barely register as urgent.

His worst scores — 10% approval, 73% disapproval — are on inflation, which 59% of Filipinos say needs to be fixed right now.

And cutting across all of it is a public that has grown more angry, more specific about its anger, and more focused on the question of who is stealing from them.

Hindi na ito yung laro na nakagisnan natin.

The politicians playing the old game — loyalty, machinery, regional fiefdoms — are going to run into something they didn't expect. A public that has started to ask a harder question.

And the survey says they're not getting a good answer yet.

Sara’s candidacy is in deep shit. And I’m smiling while sipping my kapeng barako.

Good morning.