Close fight in Cebu City

Surveys conducted by the University of San Carlos (USC) in November 2012 and March this year revealed a neck-to-neck battle for the mayoralty between Mayor Michael Rama and Cebu south district Rep. Tomas Osmeña.

For the vice mayoralty and the north and south congressional races however, Bando Osmeña Pundok Kagawasan – Liberal Party (BOPK-LP) bets have started to pull away from their Team Rama rivals.

The March survey result has seen Osmeña leading Rama with 50.6 percent. The incumbent mayor trailed at 43.6. The undecided was pegged at 5.5 percent. The March result shows some promise to the BOPK-LP standard bearer who was trailing Rama in the November USC survey.

The survey results released yesterday saw Rama’s 44.9 percent is slightly leading Osmeña’s 40.3 percent in the November survey. Undecided for the mayoralty race that time was 14.8 percent.

For the vice mayoralty BOPK-LP reelectionist Joy Augustus Young leads Councilor Edgardo Labella in the November and March surveys.

Young’s figures rose from 46.9 percent in November to 53.10 percent in March, against Labella’s 34.7 percent in November and 40.3 percent in March. The undecided was 18.4 percent in November and 6.6 last March.

For the north district congressional race, the figures are not assuring at all for showbiz celebrity Anabelle Rama whose 10.95 percent in November declined to 6.25 in March against Raul del Mar’s 84.72 percent in November and 85.11 in March.

A similar story can be gleaned in the south district with Councilor Rodrigo Abellanosa pulling away from 53.55 percent in November to 64.16 in March against lawyer Aristotle Batuhan’s 28.44 percent in November and 31.1 percent in March.

Still unpredictable

Brenette Abrinica, program director of the survey said that the race between Rama and Osmeña is still unpredictable.

“This is very telling, Osmeña worked for the last four months with that 10.30 percent increase in vote over Rama. Rama should also work to maintain the slim margin of the decrease. Rama cannot afford the increase of the decrease. If the decrease will increase, more than 8.2 percent will be favoring for Tomas,” says Abrenica.

For the vice mayoralty, Abrenica said that Young is establishing a 12.8 percent margin. But it also has to be noted that none of them garnered a decreasing rate from November to March. Labella increased at 5.6 percent while Young increased at 6.2 percent.

“If Labella is experiencing an increasing rate, he has to double the effort in increasing such rate for him to be at par to the statistics of Young,” says Abrenica.

For the north district congressional race, the statistical change of Anabelle Rama scoring an upset is very slim. Eight of 10 voters prefer Del Mar.

Abrenica said, the same can be said with the south district congressional election between Abellanosa and Batuhan.

Grace Magalso, Chairperson of the USC Political Science Department said that the main rational is to address the concern that there is an absence of the local counterpart of SWS survey.

Magalso said that the Department of Political Science Center for Governance, Leadership, and Development at USC is a non-partisan group.

“Being truthful to our task in the academe to intervene when necessary to shape political discourse and to help the Cebuanos to come up with political decisions, we decided to have this,” she added.

The November survey had 500 respondents with +/- 4.3 percent margin of error, while the March survey had 1,500 respondents with +/-2.5 margin of error.

All the respondents were registered voters in the 30-49 years old age range, with income of about P10,000 per month.

The respondents were made to answer 21 pre-structured questions.  /Carine M. Asutilla, Correspondent