Duterte losing support among Philippine poor

April 27, 2017

by: FT Confidential Research

• The poorest in Philippine society, who backed Rodrigo Duterte in his presidential election campaign, appear to be losing faith in their new leader. FTCR’s Political Sentiment Index slipped to its lowest level in a year in the first quarter.
• The erosion of support among the poor is significant given their backing of Mr Duterte’s war on drugs during the campaign.
• More broadly, however, respondents assessed Mr Duterte’s performance positively over the previous quarter.

Political sentiment in the Philippines continued to weaken in the first quarter of 2017, with our forward-looking Political Sentiment Index dropping 5.8 points to 53.3 from 61.8 in the previous quarter (see chart). This is its lowest reading in a year.

The latest figure has deteriorated sharply from the 71.3 reading recorded in the third quarter of 2016, when President Rodrigo Duterte began his six-year term.

Waning support among the poor

A breakdown of the data shows that much of the deterioration in sentiment was among the poor, who carried Mr Duterte to victory but have been hit hardest by some of his policies. These include his violent war on drugs and failure to address concerns over exploitative labour practices.

Among respondents earning 60,000-120,000 pesos ($1,200-$1,400) a year, there was a double-digit jump in the proportion who expect the political climate to worsen over the next six months. Most people in this group fall below the official government poverty threshold of 108,768 pesos annual income.

Of those in this income band, 28 per cent expect the political climate to deteriorate, up 13 percentage points over the two quarters since Mr Duterte took power (see chart). Among the poorest income group in our survey, those earning less than 60,000 pesos a year, a quarter expressed pessimism about the political climate, up from 19 per cent in the last quarter of 2016 and 10 per cent in the quarter before that.

We believe much of this erosion of support is due to Mr Duterte’s campaign against drugs, which has been characterised by critics as a “war on the poor”. Since he took over in July, the campaign has reportedly claimed about 7,000 lives, mostly of poor people, while the president has been criticised for failing to go after drug gang leaders.

Furthermore, many poor people are angry at the government’s continued failure to tackle perceived weak labour protection. Mr Duterte promised during his campaign to ban contract work, a practice often abused by companies that fire workers before they become eligible for full employee benefits. The labour department has so far only prohibited companies from repeatedly re-hiring workers under short-term contracts. It has continued to allow seasonal and project-based contract work, claiming that only Congress can restrict or ban this.

While support from the poor is falling from a high base, sentiment among higher-income earners remains negative: 46 per cent of those earning 1.2m-1.6m pesos a year expect the political climate to worsen in the next six months, up from 41 per cent in Q4 2016. Similarly, 41 per cent of those in the 480,000-720,000 peso bracket — considered upper middle-income earners — also indicated weakening political sentiment.

Mr Duterte still enjoying honeymoon period

Nevertheless, the survey found that 61 per cent of respondents approved of Mr Duterte’s performance over the past three months (see chart), suggesting that he continues to enjoy a honeymoon period. However, our survey also suggests that, while he may have enough goodwill for now to push forward his policy agenda, that window may be starting to close.

— Prinz Magtulis, Philippines Researcher