INQUIRER.net poll: Aquino should anoint Roxas as successor

President Benigno Aquino III may be agonizing over whom to endorse in the 2016 elections, but INQUIRER.net readers have already made their choice on who they think he should anoint as the administration’s presidential candidate.

An online poll conducted by INQUIRER.net showed that a dominating 68 percent of respondents, equivalent to 7,725 votes of 11,438, thought Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II should be the standard-bearer of the ruling Liberal Party next year.

Sen. Grace Poe, who topped recent surveys as the most preferred presidential candidate in 2016, came in second with 25 percent, or 2,885 votes.

Sen. Francis Escudero, meanwhile, garnered seven percent or 828 of the total votes.

Poe has previously expressed her preference to run with Escudero, but the two, as well as Roxas, have yet to announce whether they would seek higher posts in 2016.

Roxas and the two senators met with Aquino in a Palace dinner last week, but failed to come up with an agreement.

Poe confirmed that she met with the President for the third time on Monday afternoon for five hours, saying she sensed the “very difficult position” that Aquino was in.