About one in four Filipinos, or 27 percent, said they have personally witnessed or experienced cheating in a relationship, while nearly half believe trust can still be rebuilt afterward, according to a survey by Social Weather Stations (SWS).
The nationwide survey, conducted from Nov. 24 to 30, 2025, found that 27 percent of adult Filipinos reported experiencing some form of cheating, while 72 percent said they had not.
Among those who experienced cheating, physical and emotional infidelity were the most common at 11 percent each.
SWS defined physical cheating as engaging in sexual or intimate activities with someone other than one’s partner, while emotional cheating involved sharing personal problems with another person instead of one’s partner or developing romantic feelings without a physical relationship.
Cyber cheating and object cheating followed at 6 percent each. Cyber cheating was described as maintaining undisclosed social media accounts or secretly chatting with others, while object cheating referred to giving excessive attention to games, cellphones, or material objects at the expense of one’s partner.
Financial cheating, such as hiding luxury purchases or debts, was reported by 5 percent of respondents. The least experienced type was micro-cheating at 4 percent, which included using affectionate terms for someone other than one’s partner or concealing one’s relationship status.
Because respondents could give multiple answers, 8 percent said they experienced combined forms of cheating.
Despite these experiences, 43 percent of respondents said trust can still be restored after cheating, while 36 percent said it cannot. Nineteen percent were undecided.
The survey interviewed 1,200 adults nationwide through face-to-face interviews. It had a margin of error of ±3 percent for national results and ±6 percent for area results covering Metro Manila, Luzon outside Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
