MANILA, Philippines?Liberal Party standard-bearer Senator Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III has widened his lead over his closest rival, Senator Manuel Villar, by almost 11 percentage points, according to a survey conducted by an international market research firm.

The Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) survey, conducted from January 28 to February 3, showed that Aquino was the choice of 41.54 percent of the 3,000 respondents nationwide while Villar got only 30.63 percent, according to ABS-CBN News.

This meant that if the elections were held at that time, Aquino would have gotten 20.9 million votes while Villar would have received 15.4 million votes, based on the 50,380,085 registered voters as of January.

ABS-CBN added that deposed former President Joseph Etrada came in third in the TNS survey at 11.66 percent, followed by former Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro (5.21 percent), televangelist Eddie Villanueva (2 percent), Sen. Richard Gordon (1.7 percent), and Sen. Jamby Mardigal (0.22 percent).

?I never lost the lead. This shows that the people really want change and, despite all the things that they?ve thrown at us, we?ve been able to convince our doubters that, with our track record, we can do it,? said Aquino when contacted for comment.

He said he has seen the survey results but would get a detailed briefing on it next week.

?This is quite comprehensive because it also has results for our senatorial slate and discusses the reasons why voters responded this or that way,? Aquino said.

He said that the TNS survey also showed his running-mate, Sen. Mar Roxas, leading over Nacionalista Party vice-presidential bet Loren Legarda by ?over 20 percent.?

Aquino added that the C-5 controversy might have also affected Villar?s poll numbers. The TNS survey was conducted right after Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile came out with a damning report against Villar on the C-5 controversy and later accused the businessman of trying to bribe him for a more favorable report.

?The people now understand the C-5 controversy.? I?m an economist and it was a wastage of scarce resources that could have been used in other areas,? Aquino said.

The survey results are expected to be officially released on Sunday. According to its website, TNS maintains more than 600 full-time field interviewers ?at any given time?the largest field interviewer base in the Philippines?bridging our archipelago?s 7,100 islands.?

TNS reportedly does the fieldwork for Pulse Asia. It added that ?all interviews and data processing are done in-house to ensure quality.?

The firm said it maintains a consumer panel division, which is ?a permanent, syndicated and representative sample of national urban and rural Philippines that is used to observe and measure continuously actual consumer purchasing behavior in 3,000 households.?

It added that it also has the largest ?household access panel in the country with 8,000 members, providing our clients with a rich database of respondents, representative of 17 cities and municipalities in Metro Manila.?

When asked for comment about the TNS survey, NP spokesperson and senatorial candidate Gilbert Remulla said that they would rather wait for the next Pulse Asia and Social Weather Station surveys that were expected to come out in early March.

?First of all, we don?t know who commissioned [the TNS survey], how the questions were formulated, its methodology, what regions were surveyed. From what we know, it came from the Liberal Party,? Remulla said.

?We would rather wait for the SWS and Pulse Asia surveys which are non-commissioned and whose credibility has not been questioned,? he added.

Remulla said that the data gathering for the SWS and Pulse Asia has already started and the results could be out by March 7.

He also noted that the TNS survey was taken ?just a few days? after a Pulse Asia survey showed that Aquino and Villar were statistically tied.

?This is not to cast doubt [on the TNS survey] but we just don?t know enough about it,? Remulla said.

He also denied reports that the Villar camp commissioned a Pulse Asia survey from Feb 3 to 6 showing Aquino leading Villar by 12 percentage points.

?We don?t know that. Pulse Asia did not conduct a survey and we did not commission anything,? Remulla said.

Former Sen. Serge Osmeña III, who reportedly commissioned the TNS survey, said that the campaign should now sharpen its message to maintain its lead over Villar.

?People do not believe what the [Villar camp] is presenting.? If this elections were only about ads, Villar would now be leading by a mile,? said Osmeña, an LP guest senatorial candidate who has been named the ?campaign coordinator.?

?I took the offer for that position to help strengthen the campaign. You could have called me campaign janitor and it wouldn?t have mattered,? he added.

He said he has already been meeting with Aquino campaign officials since Friday to identify and get rid of the ?bottlenecks? in the campaign organization so that it could run more smoothly.

?Like in any big organizations, you?ll have overlapping functions or duplication of tasks. We?re trying to smoothen that out,? Osmeña said.