MANILA — More than half of Filipino adults still approve of how the Senate and the House of Representatives have been doing their jobs, results of a September survey by pollster Pulse Asia suggest.

Nearly half of respondents of the September 2023 Ulat ng Bayan survey approved of the work of the Supreme Court at 49%, down slightly from 53% in June.

The House, meanwhile, got an approval rating of 54% from 58% in the previous survey. The Senate had a performance rating of 59% against an earlier 62%.

"While the national performance ratings of these institutions are essentially unchanged during the period June 2023 to September 2023, there are a few significant movements across areas and classes," Pulse Asia said in its media release.

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Higher in Mindanao, lower in Visayas

The Senate's rating, for example, climbed 12 percentage points in Mindanao but dropped by 17 percentage points in the Visayas.

Ratings for the House fell by 11 percentage points in the Visayas but rose by six percentage points in Mindanao.

"The Supreme Court experiences an improvement in its approval score in Mindanao (+14 percentage points) but the opposite occurs in Metro Manila (-14 percentage points)," Pulse Asia also noted.

The Senate's relatively higher rating in Mindanao cannot necessarily be attributed to it being led by Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri of Bukidnon and having members from the southern Philippines, according to Anthony Lawrence Borja, who teaches political science at De La Salle University.

"Regionalism or ethno-linguistic tribal loyalty is but one factor. As far as recent studies go, I think it plays a heavier role during elections," he told ABS-CBN News.

He added that "aggravated national problems like inflation can wash away regionalistic-tribal loyalties."

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Pulse Asia noted that ambivalence to the performance of the Senate and the House "becomes more manifest" in the Visayas.

Across institutions, approval receded most among the ABC sectors, with the Senate losing 22 percentage points, the House losing 24 and the Supreme Court losing seven percentage points among respondents of that class.

Pulse Asia conducted face-to-face interviews with 1,200 representative adults from September 10 to 14 for the survey, the pollster said.

The survey has a ± 2.8% error margin at the 95% confidence level.