Visayas lawmakers top nationwide satisfaction survey – OCTA

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

MANILA – The Visayas recorded the highest level of satisfaction with district representatives among the country’s four major geographic areas, according to a nationwide survey released Monday by OCTA Research.

Sixty-eight percent of respondents in the Visayas agreed that their current congressman or congresswoman is doing a good job representing their district in the House of Representatives.

Mindanao followed at 65 percent, Balance Luzon at 63 percent, and the National Capital Region at 60 percent.

The Visayas was also the only major area in which every constituent region placed above the national figure of 64 percent.

Region VI, which covers Iloilo, Iloilo City, Guimaras, Antique, Aklan, and Capiz, posted 68 percent, while Region VIII registered 66 percent and Region VII 65 percent.

The Negros Island Region led all 17 regions in the country at 82 percent, the highest figure recorded anywhere in the survey.

Nationally, 27 percent of respondents disagreed that their district representative is performing well, 9 percent said they did not know or could not say, and no respondent refused to answer.

Those individual ratings stand far above what Filipinos gave the chamber itself. In the same survey wave, 38 percent expressed trust in the House of Representatives as an institution, and 37 percent gave it a positive performance rating.

The area-level figures carry a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level, based on 300 respondents drawn from 60 barangays across the Visayas.

Individual regional figures carry wider margins. Region VI’s 68 percent is subject to a margin of plus or minus 11 points from 80 respondents, and the Negros Island Region’s 82 percent to a margin of plus or minus 13 points from 60 respondents.

The poll asked respondents: “Sumasang-ayon o hindi sumasang-ayon ba kayo na ang kasalukuyang kongresista sa aking distrito ay gumagawa ng mabuting trabaho sa pagkatawan sa aming distrito sa Kapulungan ng mga Kinatawan.”

Disagreement ranged from 25 percent to 30 percent across the four major areas. The National Capital Region posted the highest at 30 percent, followed by Mindanao at 28 percent, Balance Luzon at 27 percent, and the Visayas at 25 percent.

Undecided shares stood at 10 percent in both the National Capital Region and Balance Luzon, and 7 percent in both the Visayas and Mindanao.

Poorest respondents ‘most satisfied’

The class pattern ran opposite to what material well-being would predict. Class E respondents, the poorest segment, gave the highest approval at 72 percent, compared with 63 percent among Class D and 61 percent among Class ABC.

Disagreement by class stood at 28 percent among Class D, 27 percent among Class ABC, and 25 percent among Class E. Undecided shares were 11 percent for Class ABC, 9 percent for Class D, and 3 percent for Class E.

A wide regional spread

Majorities were satisfied in every one of the 17 regions surveyed, but the spread was wide.

After the Negros Island Region, the highest agreement levels came from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao at 75 percent, Region I at 71 percent, MIMAROPA at 70 percent, Region X at 69 percent, Region VI and Region XI at 68 percent each, and Region III at 67 percent.

The Cordillera Administrative Region and Region VIII each registered 66 percent, Region VII 65 percent, Region II 64 percent, Region V and Region XII 61 percent each, and the National Capital Region 60 percent.

The lowest levels of agreement were recorded in Region XIII at 55 percent, Region IV-A at 57 percent, and Region IX at 58 percent.

Disagreement peaked in Region XII at 39 percent, Region XIII at 38 percent, and Region IX at 34 percent. It was lowest in MIMAROPA at 14 percent, the Negros Island Region at 17 percent, and Region XI at 21 percent.

Among the remaining regions, disagreement stood at 33 percent in Region II, 31 percent in Region IV-A, 30 percent in both the National Capital Region and Region VII, 27 percent in the Cordillera Administrative Region, 26 percent in Region I, 25 percent in Region VIII and the Bangsamoro region, 24 percent in Regions III and VI, 23 percent in Region X, and 22 percent in Region V.

Region V recorded the largest undecided share at 17 percent, followed by MIMAROPA at 16 percent and Region IV-A at 12 percent.

No respondent in Region XII or the Bangsamoro region was undecided, and only 1 percent in the Negros Island Region.

Undecided shares elsewhere stood at 11 percent in Region XI, 10 percent in both the National Capital Region and Region VIII, 8 percent in Regions III, IX, and X, 7 percent in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Region VI, and Region XIII, 5 percent in Region VII, and 3 percent in Regions I and II.

Little variation by age, gender, or schooling

Across age groups, satisfaction was highest among respondents aged 65 to 74 at 72 percent, followed by those aged 18 to 24 at 66 percent and those aged 35 to 44 at 65 percent.

Agreement was lowest among respondents aged 25 to 34 and those aged 75 and above, both at 60 percent. The oldest bracket also recorded the largest undecided share of any age group at 18 percent.

Respondents aged 45 to 54 and 55 to 64 each registered 63 percent agreement.

Disagreement by age ran from 22 percent among those aged 75 and above and 23 percent among those aged 65 to 74, to 30 percent among respondents aged 25 to 34 and 55 to 64. It stood at 29 percent among those aged 18 to 24, 24 percent among those aged 35 to 44, and 27 percent among those aged 45 to 54.

Undecided shares by age were 5 percent among respondents aged 18 to 24 and 65 to 74, 7 percent among those aged 55 to 64, 10 percent among those aged 25 to 34 and 45 to 54, and 11 percent among those aged 35 to 44.

Assessments varied little by residence or gender. Sixty-five percent of rural respondents and 63 percent of urban respondents agreed, while agreement stood at 64 percent among both men and women.

Disagreement was recorded at 28 percent among urban respondents and 27 percent among rural respondents, and at 28 percent among men and 27 percent among women.

By educational attainment, satisfaction was highest among respondents with no formal or elementary education at 67 percent, followed by college or postgraduate respondents at 65 percent and high school respondents at 64 percent.

Respondents with vocational education recorded the lowest agreement of any demographic segment measured at 58 percent, and the highest disagreement at 35 percent.

Disagreement among the other educational groups stood at 33 percent for college or postgraduate respondents and 25 percent each for elementary and high school respondents. Undecided shares were 11 percent among high school respondents, 8 percent among those with no formal or elementary education, 3 percent among college or postgraduate respondents, and none among those with vocational education.

The institution versus the individual

OCTA said the release was designed to separate two things that public discourse often collapses: how Filipinos evaluate the House of Representatives as an institution, and how they evaluate the individual legislator who represents their own district.

Most polling on Congress measures institutional trust or performance in the aggregate, the pollster said, which can obscure a more localized dynamic in which constituents hold views of their own representative that diverge sharply from their views of the chamber as a whole.

By asking both questions in the same survey wave, OCTA said, the gap can be measured directly rather than assumed.

The research group said the 64 percent satisfaction rating for local representatives, set against the 38 percent institutional trust and 37 percent institutional performance ratings, suggests that accountability in Philippine politics may operate more effectively, or at least more visibly, at the constituency level than at the level of the institution.

OCTA said the pattern bears on how legislators themselves calculate political incentives, since a representative’s standing with constituents appears largely decoupled from the public’s broader assessment of Congress.

It also offers a partial explanation for the persistence of high incumbent reelection rates in individual districts alongside persistently low institutional trust in Congress as a whole, the pollster said.

OCTA cautioned that the institutional and individual measures refer to distinct survey questions and should be interpreted separately rather than treated as directly interchangeable.

Why the regional gaps matter

On the regional spread, OCTA said the range from 55 percent in Region XIII to 82 percent in the Negros Island Region indicates that satisfaction with district representation is not a uniform national mood but a locally contingent one.

The survey was not designed to isolate the factors behind that variation, the group said, but among them are the visibility of a representative’s constituency work, local political conditions, and the competitiveness of the most recent electoral contest in each district.

OCTA said the variation is itself a finding, cautioning against treating district representative approval as a single national indicator and arguing for reading it region by region when it is used to inform political or policy judgments.

On the class pattern, the pollster said one plausible reading is that lower-income constituents, who may rely more directly on a representative’s constituency services and local patronage networks, form their assessment on more immediate and tangible grounds than higher-income constituents, who may evaluate representation in more institutional or policy-oriented terms.

The survey cannot adjudicate between that explanation and others, OCTA said, but the pattern is robust enough to warrant attention in any analysis that treats the poor and the middle class as evaluating political representation the same way.

The survey was conducted a year into the 20th Congress, which convened in July 2025.

How the survey was done

The Tugon ng Masa fieldwork ran from July 4 to 11, 2026, using face-to-face interviews. Fieldwork in Mindanao ran from July 4 to 10.

One thousand two hundred male and female probability respondents aged 18 and above, drawn from Class ABCDE households, were interviewed.

The survey carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. Subnational estimates carry a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.

The sample covered 240 barangays distributed among the 17 regions in proportion to population size, with five probability respondents drawn from each barangay.

The National Capital Region accounted for 60 barangays and 300 respondents; North and Central Luzon, 29 barangays and 145 respondents; Southern Luzon, 31 barangays and 155 respondents; the Visayas, 60 barangays and 300 respondents; and Mindanao, 60 barangays and 300 respondents.

Within the Visayas, Region VII accounted for 19 barangays and 95 respondents, Region VI for 16 barangays and 80 respondents, Region VIII for 13 barangays and 65 respondents, and the Negros Island Region for 12 barangays and 60 respondents.

Within North and Central Luzon, Region III accounted for 15 barangays and 75 respondents, Region I for seven barangays and 35 respondents, Region II for five barangays and 25 respondents, and the Cordillera Administrative Region for two barangays and 10 respondents.

Within Southern Luzon, Region IV-A accounted for 20 barangays and 100 respondents, Region V for seven barangays and 35 respondents, and MIMAROPA for four barangays and 20 respondents.

Within Mindanao, Region X and Region XI each accounted for 12 barangays and 60 respondents, Region IX for 11 barangays and 55 respondents, Region XII for 10 barangays and 50 respondents, the Bangsamoro region for nine barangays and 45 respondents, and Caraga for six barangays and 30 respondents.

Regional subsamples carry substantially wider error margins than the national figure. At a 95 percent confidence level, these are plus or minus 11 percentage points for Region VI, plus or minus 10 for Region VII, plus or minus 12 for Region VIII, and plus or minus 13 for the Negros Island Region.

Elsewhere, the margins are plus or minus 31 percentage points for the Cordillera Administrative Region, 17 for Region I, 20 for Region II, 11 for Region III, 10 for Region IV-A, 22 for MIMAROPA, 17 for Region V, 13 each for Regions IX, X, and XI, 14 for Region XII, 18 for Caraga, and 15 for the Bangsamoro region.

Sample barangays in the National Capital Region were distributed among the 17 cities and municipalities roughly in proportion to population size, with each municipality assigned at least one barangay.

Households were selected through interval sampling from a randomly drawn starting street corner, with every sixth household sampled thereafter. In each household, a respondent aged 18 and above was chosen using a probability selection table.

To balance the sample by gender, only male family members were pre-listed in the selection tables for odd-numbered questionnaires and only female members for even-numbered ones.

Outside the National Capital Region, barangays were allocated to regions in proportion to population size, and sample cities and municipalities were drawn without replacement with probability proportional to household population.

Five households were selected in each sample barangay through interval sampling, using a random corner in urban barangays and a designated landmark such as a school, barangay hall, church, or the barangay captain’s residence in rural ones.

The questionnaire was prepared in Filipino with an English translation and was also translated into Bicol, Cebuano, Ilocano, and Ilonggo for use in the areas covered.

Field interviewers underwent training conducted face to face and online in Quezon City, Cebu City, Iloilo City, Zamboanga City, and Davao City.

Field supervisors observed 10 percent of total interviews and spot-checked a further 22 percent of interviews that were not observed, OCTA said.

Unsupervised interviews found to contain serious errors during spot-checking were invalidated and the respondents re-interviewed. An error was considered serious where there was evidence of dishonest recording of responses or a serious misinterpretation of the study that produced incorrect information.

Where a qualified respondent was unavailable on the initial visit, a second appointment was set within the same day. After two valid callbacks, a substitute interview was conducted with a respondent matched on economic class, age group, working status, and gender from the same area.

Responses were encoded in real time through SurveyToGo computer-assisted personal interviewing software on tablets and mobile phones, using a programmed questionnaire validated against the approved paper version before deployment.

Seventy percent of completed interviews were back-checked for area coverage using recorded GPS coordinates, interview integrity using audio recordings and photo attachments, and data accuracy through independent re-encoding and cross-validation against the captured dataset.

OCTA described the survey as independent, non-partisan, and non-commissioned, and said the results were released as a public service.