SWS: 41% of Pinoys back impeachment of VP Sara

Four in 10 Filipinos or 41% are supportive of the impeachment or removal from office of Vice President Sara Duterte, a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed.

The SWS survey, conducted between December 12 and December 18, 2024 and commissioned by advisory and consultancy group Stratbase, also revealed that 35% of Filipinos are against the impeachment of Duterte.

At least 19% of the respondents are undecided.

There are three impeachment complaints filed by various groups and endorsed by six members of the House of Representatives against the Vice President.

Mindanao as sanctuary 

The highest percentage of those in favor of Duterte’s impeachment was recorded in Balance Luzon with 50%, followed by the National Capital Region at 45%, while only 40% of the respondents in Visayas are in favor of removing Duterte as Vice President.

Duterte’s bailiwick, Mindanao, however, recorded the lowest figure of those in favor of her impeachment at 22%. Correspondingly, 56% of the respondents in Mindanao are against her impeachment.

At least 37% of respondents in Metro Manila are also against the impeachment, just slightly above Visayas which posted a 33% figure. Meanwhile, 25% of those in Balance Luzon are also against the impeachment of Duterte.

Among socio-economic classes, the support for impeachment of Duterte is highest in the ABC bracket at 50%.

Class D and E bracket recorded 41% and 37% support for Duterte’s impeachment, respectively.

As for the top reason for Duterte’s impeachment, 46% of the respondents said she should be removed from her post due to her failure to explain the confidential and intelligence fund spending by the Office of the Vice President and Department of Education during her term as Education chief.

The rest of the reasons were:

• Duterte’s refusal to answer investigations on the use of confidential and intelligence funds (36%)
• Ill-gotten wealth that could not be explained in her Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (25%)
• Duterte’s threat to the lives of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez (24%)I
• Involvement in extrajudicial killings during her tenure as Mayor of Davao City (23%)
• Duterte’s failure to condemn China’s aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea (13%)
• Lack of self-control, for example, she let her emotions get the better of her during a press conference where she continuously criticized President Marcos, Jr. and said she wanted to behead him over the latter’s refusal to give his watch to a cadet (12%)
• Her trip to Germany during the onslaught of Typhoon Carina (11%) 
• Ordering her subordinates to prepare accomplishment reports on the distribution of confidential and intelligence funds, supported by fabricated receipts and documents (11%)

The SWS poll had 2,160 respondents with a margin of error of ±2. 

GMA News Online has reached out to the Vice President’s camp for comment and will publish it as soon as it becomes available. —LDF, GMA Integrated News