Senator Francis Escudero and Senator Loren Legarda
If the elections were held in the last week of November, either Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero or Sen. Loren Legarda would have topped the senatorial race, a nationwide survey conducted by Pulse Asia Inc. showed.
Per the survey, 74.1 percent of Filipino adults would have voted for Escudero, an independent candidate, while 69.3 percent would have voted for Legarda of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) if the elections were held between Nov. 23 and 29, the pollster said in a statement Tuesday.
But with the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, Escudero and Legarda actually tied in the first and second spots.
Six months before the May 2013 senatorial polls, the survey found that less than four in 10 Filipinos, or 39 percent, had picked a complete slate of senatorial candidates for the elections.
Average of 9
On average, the respondents had picked nine senatorial candidates to vote for.
For the survey, Pulse Asia asked 1,200 adults nationwide: “If the 2013 elections were held today, who among the following personalities would you vote for assuming they would run for office?”
The poll outfit provided a list of 32 candidates and asked the respondents to choose only 12.
The 12 who topped the survey included four candidates of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), two candidates each of the NPC and Nacionalista Party (NP), and one candidate each from the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP Laban), Liberal Party-Nacionalista Party (LP-NP) and Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP).
Escudero was the lone independent candidate in the roster of probable winners.
Pulse Asia noted that “virtually all of the probable winners were either current or former members of Congress.”
Escudero and Legarda were followed in the winners’ list by NP candidate Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano (60.1 percent, third to fourth place) and UNA’s San Juan Rep. JV Ejercito Estrada (57 percent, third to sixth place).
In fourth to seventh place were Cagayan Rep. Jack Ponce Enrile (53.2 percent) and former Las Piñas City Rep. Cynthia Villar (52.2 percent), who are both running under the NPC.
Trailing them were PDP Laban candidate Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III (50.2 percent, fifth to eighth place) and UNA candidate Sen. Gringo Honasan (44.9 percent, seventh to 12th place).
Top 12
Also making it to the list of probable winners were LP-NP candidate Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV (43.2 percent), UNA’s Nancy Binay (41.3 percent), LDP’s Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara (40.8 percent) and UNA candidate Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri (40.5 percent), who were tied in eighth to 12th place.
Compared to the September Pulse Asia survey, three senatorial bets improved their rankings: Pimentel (previously in sixth to 10th place), Villar (previously in ninth to 11th place) and Binay (previously in 12th to 15th place).
Pimentel, Villar and Binay have been airing infomercials over the major television networks the past few months despite a ban on early campaigning.
Meanwhile, among those who slipped in their rankings were Trillanes (formerly sixth to 10th place), Angara and Zubiri (both previously in sixth to 11th place).
Failing to make it to the top 12 were former Sen. Jamby Madrigal (LP, 34.4 percent, 13th to 14th place), former Sen. Richard Gordon (UNA, 29.7 percent, 13th to 17th place), former Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr. (LP, 28.8 percent, 14th to 17th place), Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV (LP. 27.9 percent, 14th to 17th place) and Grace Poe-Llamanzares (Independent, 24.7 percent, 14th to 18th place). Lawrence de Guzman, Inquirer Research