LUCENA CITY, Philippines — Presidential candidate Senator Panfilo Lacson said he remains undeterred about pre-election surveys, which have shown him lagging behind his rivals.
“Ako hindi ako bothered. ‘Di ako deterred dun sa mga survey results. Talagang ang totoo lang na dapat tignan natin ay May 9,” Lacson told reporters after a town hall meeting here on Monday.
(I’m not bothered by it. I’m not deterred by survey results. What we should really treat as the real result is the one that will come out on May 9.)
“Kasi kung papaniwalaan natin ang mga resulta ng survey, lahat kaming nakatayo doon kagabi talo, yung wala doon ang panalo. Kung titignan a,” he added.
(Because if we believe the results of the surveys, all of us who stood there have lost, the only one who skipped won. If you will look at the survey.)
He was referring to Sunday’s CNN Philippines presidential candidates. While Lacson did not specifically mention a name, only former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. was absent among the 10 contenders.
“Kung babasehan lang natin ang resulta ng survey, walang mananalo sa aming nine kung babasehan ang survey. Ang mananalo, ang panalo na, yung wala doon kung susundan natin yang mga surveys,” Lacson went on.
READ: Marcos Jr. leads latest Pulse Asia survey for presidential race
(If we will base it only on the survey results, no one will win among the nine of us. The one who will win is one who did not attend the debates if we follow the survey.)
Despite saying that skipping debates can be considered “unfair” to other candidates, Lacson pointed out that there is no law mandating bets to attend such an event.
“Well, you can say it’s unfair pero wala naman tayo magagawa kasi ‘di mo naman talaga ma-impose [but we can’t do anything about it because you can’t really complete them],” the senator said.
“Walang batas na kailangang ang isang kandidato mag-attend sa isang debate [There’s no law mandating a candidate to mandate them to join a debate] ,” he added.