Aquino, Roxas still the people’s choice

Pulse Asia, MST surveys: Noy-Mar No. 1!

Liberal Party standard bearers Senators Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino and Manuel “Mar” Roxas continue to be the peoples’ choice to become the next president and vice president of the country, latest poll surveys released today indicated.

Pre-election surveys conducted by the Pulse Asia and the Manila Standard Today for the month of January showed Aquino and Roxas have maintained their leads over their rivals for the presidential and vice presidential May 10 electoral races.

In the Pulse Asia survey of 1,800 respondents during the period January 22 to 26, Aquino was chosen by 37% of the voters, while 35% chose Nacionalista presidential bet Sen. Manuel Villar.

Former President Joseph Estrada came in third with 12%, followed by former Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro with 5%, religious leader Bro. Eddie Villanueva with 2% and Sen. Richard Gordon, 1%.

In the Pulse Asia vice presidential survey, frontrunner Mar Roxas crushed closest rival Sen. Loren Legarda with a 47% rating, or a staggering lead of 19% over Legarda’s 28%.

Also, Roxas beat Legarda in the MST polls conducted by pollster Pedro Laylo Jr. during the period January 20 to 27. Roxas was chosen by 43% of the 2,500 respondents while Legarda got a picking of only 29%, or a big difference of 14%.

In the said survey, Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay ranked third with a rating of 14%, followed by former MMDA chairman Bayani Fernando with 3% and actor Edu Manzano with 3%.

The pre-election surveys of the Pulse Asia and MST confirmed a similar survey conducted by the polling firm Social Weather Stations (SWS), which showed Roxas’ lead over Legarda ballooning to 21% if elections for the vice presidential race was held today.

In the SWS survey of 2,100 respondents conducted for the BusinessWorld during the period January 20 to 24, Roxas was picked by 49% of the voters while Legarda got a nominal 28%.

In third place was Binay with 16%, followed by Fernando and Manzano, who each got 2%.

Roxas has consistently been the peoples’ choice for the vice presidential race in pre-election surveys conducted by the country’s top polling companies. He has maintained a two-digit lead over his rival vice presidential contenders in all recent surveys, a strong indication of how voters would pick the country’s second highest elective official in this year’s national elections.

The Liberal Party, on the other hand, is confident Aquino will maintain his lead over Villar, saying the numbers would change significantly once the public learns the truth behind the P6.2-billion C5 extension road scandal.

LP campaign manager Florencio Abad said Villar’s rating shoot up purely due to his huge “war chest” which has enabled him to flood the broadcast media with his campaign ads, a far cry to the little air time that Aquino has been able to get due to limited financial resources.

Official figures show Villar outspent the LP bet 7 to 1 in TV advertisements from January 22 to 24, the period when all of the pre-election surveys were conducted.

This is a gimmick that private companies usually engage in to improve the ratings of their products in market research services, Abad said.

He added the LP will intensify Aquino’s television ads during the campaign period to “stabilize his lead.”