Duterte leads mock poll at convenience store chain

MANILA — Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte led a recent mock poll conducted in over 1,500 convenience stores nationwide, winning more than half of the votes.

The tough-talking local chief executive was the preferred candidate of 58 percent of Philippine Seven Corp.’s customers who bought over half-a-million “7-Election cups” in its 1,650 outlets in the country from March 23 to April 1.

Interestingly, Duterte was followed by none of his opponents in the race for Malacañang as 14 percent of the company’s customers who participated in the mock poll said they were still undecided on their presidential candidate, a month before the May 9 elections.

“This may be indicative of the need for the candidates to work harder,” Philippine Seven Corp. marketing communications division head Emmanuel Lee Esguerra said on Friday.

Recent poll leader Sen. Grace Poe only placed third in the mock poll, taking 11 percent of the vote. She was followed by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago (6.3 percent) and Vice President Jejomar Binay (5.9 percent). Administration candidate and former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas was the least preferred candidate of 7-Eleven’s customers, only taking 4 percent of the vote.

Esguerra has pointed out that the results of their 7-Election cups campaign, which will run till May 2, are “unofficial and unscientific.”

“The 7-Election cups is simply a fun way to encourage voters’ participation in the coming elections. It aims to encourage the public to get to know more the candidates and to go out and vote in May,” Esguerra said.

Launched in the United States during the 2000 presidential elections, the 7-Election campaign predicted the wins of former President George W. Bush over then Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and President Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain in 2008.

The campaign was introduced in the country during the 2010 presidential elections. At that time, Esguerra said that their mock polls had President Aquino winning 38 percent of the vote. The official Commission on Elections result would later show him winning 42 percent of the total votes cast.

Asked if the first weekly result of their poll was any indication that Duterte might also win the presidency, Esguerra said that it would be “hard to say” because of the various factors present in this year’s elections.

“We now have more outlets, especially in the Visayas and Mindanao. Also, there’s the factor of the [pervasiveness of] social media,” Esguerra said.

Achilles Martinez, Philippine Seven Corp.’s team leader for postmix and slurpee category, said that Duterte’s lead in their poll was despite the location of around 80 percent of their company’s stores in Luzon. He noted that it was only in 2012 that they opened an outlet in Cebu and just last year in Davao.

Martinez said that most of the candidates received the highest number of votes in their home turf, like Duterte in Davao, Santiago in Iloilo and Binay in Makati. For Poe, she topped a Nueva Ecija branch, while Roxas received huge support from an outlet in Balanga, Bataan.

Except for Duterte, who won 80 percent of the vote in Davao, Martinez said that the places where the candidates had their highest number of votes weren’t necessarily the areas where they had a commanding lead.

For instance, the most number of votes cast for Roxas was in Bataan but for that area he only placed third. The same is the case for Binay in Makati, where the mock poll leader is Duterte.

Customers of the convenience store can participate in the campaign by availing themselves of any Gulp product, which starts at P25. They can purchase as many election cups as possible. Results of the mock election can be viewed at www.7-election.com.ph.  SFM

RELATED VIDEOS