MANILA, Philippines–Vice President Jejomar Binay on Wednesday refused to tangle with Sen. Grace Poe over her rising popularity among voters, which makes her his potential closest rival in the 2016 presidential election.
Binay’s rating continued to dive, dropping by 5 percentage points to 26 percent in the latest voter-preference survey of Pulse Asia, but he still kept the lead.
Poe surged from 10 percent to 18 percent to land second place, overtaking Interior Secretary Mar Roxas and threatening Binay’s lead.
But Binay is nonchalant, saying the main issue is whether those running for President have the capability and experience to govern.
Poe is a first-time politician who topped the senatorial election in 2013.
Vice President Jejomar Binay. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Her first experience in government was heading the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), as appointed by President Aquino.
In an interview on dwIZ radio Wednesday, Binay considered his 26 percentage points still “good.”
Good, better, best
Explaining, Binay said that given the “vilification campaign” against him by his political foes, he categorized his survey ratings into good, better and best.
Good, he said, is when his numbers go down but not so much; better is when his numbers go up; and best is when his numbers remain the same.
“So what happened is that it’s good. It could’ve been bad if the number was double digit,” he said.
When asked if he saw Poe, whose ratings continue to rise, as a threat to his presidential bid, Binay declined to comment.
At one point, Binay said he was godfather to Poe’s child because Poe’s father, the late movie actor Fernando Poe Jr., had asked him.
Asked whether his closeness to the Poe family meant that the senator may eventually become his running mate in 2016, Binay said he did not want to preempt Poe by making a statement, noting that these are times of “political intrigues.”
Even so, Binay said the issue in the 2016 presidential election should be whether the candidates “have the capability and experience” to govern the country.
Capability and experience are what people are looking for in an “administrator,” he said.
Crisis management
Binay mentioned his record as mayor of Makati City for 21 years as well as his management of the “crisis” he was facing, referring to allegations of corruption leveled against him in a Senate inquiry into alleged overpricing in the construction of the Makati City Hall Building II when he was mayor of the city.
He said his way of handling the crisis was not to watch television or read newspapers.
“So your management, if you can call it a crisis, you need to have experience. You should not be a first timer easily rattled,” he said in mixed Filipino and English.
Asked to comment on the seeming Christmas ceasefire in the attacks against him, Binay disagreed that the lull had to do with the holidays.
“Ceasefire because they ran out of lies. They are still looking for other false things to say about me,” he said.
An ally of Binay in the House of Representatives played down the latest Pulse Asia survey results.
Valenzuela Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian of the Nationalist People’s Coalition said the Vice President remained the “presidential front-runner,” as he was still comfortably ahead of Poe.
“What is important here is that the feared free fall in VP Binay’s numbers has been arrested,” Gatchalian said in a statement.
“His biggest drop was during the third quarter survey when his numbers dropped by a whopping 10 points, from 41 to 31. The VP’s 5-percent drop in the latest survey could be considered marginal,” Gatchalian said.
Still top choice
He said the survey was a strong indication that Binay was still the top choice of a majority of Filipinos to lead the country if the 2016 election were held today.
“VP Binay’s current ratings have already ‘plateaued,’ meaning that there is no way for the Vice President’s number to go but up. They have thrown everything at him, including the kitchen sink. And despite the massive negative media attacks, Binay is still the top choice for President,” Gatchalian said.
He said Binay’s “staying power” in the presidential race showed “not only his solid track record as local chief executive for 20 years but also his appeal and charisma to ordinary Filipinos in the provinces.”
“The public has a saturation point wherein an overload of information will result [in] confusion and subsequent perception that everything being thrown against VP Binay is pure political propaganda,” Gatchalian said.