Duterte camp: Persistence, hard work will be our key to victory

Davao City Mayor and Presidential aspirant Rodrigo Duterte INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

DAVAO CITY—The camp of presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday said “persistence and hard work” will be their key to victory in the upcoming May elections.

This was after Duterte landed in a statistical tie with Senator Grace Poe in the first place in a survey commissioned by ABS-CBN and conducted by Pulse Asia.

READ: Duterte, Poe ‘statistically tied’ in first place in new poll

Duterte earned 25 percentage points behind Poe’s 26 points.

“We are where we are comfortable right now. We expect to gain more points as we move towards the second half of the campaign,” Mayor Leoncio Evasco Jr. of Maribojoc town in Bohol, Duterte’s campaign manager, said in a statement.

Evasco added that they were working doubly hard to cover more grounds as the first half of the campaign period is winding down.

What is more revealing, he said, is that Duterte gained more grounds during the week of the survey when the Supreme Court overturned a Commission on Elections’ decision to disqualify Poe.

Evasco, who was also Duterte’s former chief of staff, credited the rise of their bet’s ranking to the clamor of the people for genuine change in the national leadership.

“There is this growing groundswell of discontent among the people and they see in Duterte the strong leadership that the country has been wanting over the last decade,” Evasco said.

While being cautious about momentum, Evasco said the Holy Week will provide them opportunity to assess where they went very strong and gained more converts.

“Of course, we are happy with the results of the survey,” he said.

Duterte’s media team’s head Peter Laviña also explained that the result of the debates in Cebu last Sunday could further boost the mayor’s image as a decisive leader. RAM

READ: Duterte, Roxas won Cebu debate—INQUIRER.net Facebook, site polls