Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 23) — President Rodrigo Duterte scored his highest net satisfaction rating so far in the November 2020 survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS), but the succeeding poll showed a double-digit fall.

From a record-high +79 in November 2020, the President’s net satisfaction rating dropped by 14 points to +65 in May 2021. The number went down a bit further to +62 in June 2021.

SWS released the results of the three surveys in one go during a webinar on Thursday.

SWS fellow and political science professor Jorge Tigno said the President’s high satisfaction rating in the November 2020 survey may be attributed to the decline in the number of COVID-19 cases in the country that time.

“I would situate that in that context, when people were sensing that, okay, this is now starting to be over. And we’re relieved that this has happened, and we’re satisfied with what the government has done, what Duterte has done,” Tigno said.

Another SWS fellow and economics professor Geoffrey Ducanes said based on the data, most survey participants think the Duterte administration is doing good in its pandemic response.

“Most people actually don’t think the government mismanaged the pandemic. That’s what the survey results show. They gave the government relatively high rating in terms of taking care of those who got COVID, and also relatively high rating in terms of vaccination. The question is whether that is an objective or correct view of what really happened,” Ducanes said.

The survey firm explained they did not release the results right after the conduct of the surveys because they had to carefully study their data due to changes in the methodology.

“Things are so different nowadays with the pandemic…We wanted to make sure that was studied first before releasing it,” SWS board member Steven Rood said.

SWS said it will release full details of the surveys on its website soon.