Binay unfazed by 3rd place survey ranking a month before polls

Vice President Jejomar Binay on Tuesday said he was unfazed by his failure to regain the top spot in the surveys now led by Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

In an interview with reporters in Manila where he took his campaign sortie, Binay said it was too early to be worried that he had not regained the top spot in the surveys a month before the May 9 elections.

Binay said history would repeat itself like in 2010 when he beat then vice presidential candidate Manuel “Mar” Roxas II even though he was not at the top of the surveys.

“Napapa-aga na nga po ito. Kung kukunin natin at tutunguhan natin yung ating karanasan sa 2010, sa third week naging single digit, eh ito hindi pa third week. This is another case of history repeating itself,” Binay said.

The Vice President also derided survey front-runners Duterte and Sen. Grace Poe for shedding the biggest points in the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey while he claimed to be the lone gainer.

READ: Binay says he is lone gainer in latest SWS survey

“Sana sabihin mo ano po masasabi niyo, bumagsak po si berdugo, si American girl, 11 puntos ang ibinagsak at ako umangat ako ng apat, ’yun ang magandang presentasyon dun,” Binay said.

Binay had panned Duterte as a butcher for his alleged links to the Davao Death Squad, and Poe for once assuming American citizenship.

According to the latest Pulse Asia survey conducted March 29 to April 3 and commissioned by ABS-CBN, Duterte gained solo lead with 30 percent, up six percentage points from the previous survey conducted March 15 to 20 among 4,000 respondents.

READ: Duterte overtakes Poe to pace Pulse Asia poll

This meant Duterte had overtaken Poe, who placed second at 25 percent, down three points from the previous survey where she was front-runner.

∙ Poe keeps lead in latest Pulse Asia poll

Duterte topped the Pulse Asia survey a day after also getting the lead in the latest SWS poll conducted March 30 to April 2 where he got the approval of 27 percent of 1,500 respondents.

READ: Duterte is new front-runner in SWS poll

In the latest Pulse Asia survey, Binay came in third with 20 percent, down three percentage points, while administration bet Roxas maintained his 19 percent rating.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago got only two percent of the respondents, lower than the four percent who were not inclined to support any presidential candidate.

The survey had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 1.5 percentage points.

In the SWS poll, which had plus-or-minus three percentage points margin of error, Poe was in a statistical tie with Binay at 23 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

Roxas garnered 18 percent, while Santiago placed last at three percent.

Duterte’s rating increased by four percentage points from 23 percent in the March 8-11 SWS survey, but he went down four points from 31 percent in the March 30 Bilang Pilipino-SWS Mobile Survey.

Poe’s ratings went down six points from 29 percent in the March 8-11 survey, and also decreased by 11 points from her 34 percent in the mobile survey.

Binay’s ratings went down two points from his 22 percent score in the previous survey, but went up three points from 17 percent in the mobile survey.

Roxas’ score was almost unchanged, from his 18 percent score in the previous survey to 19 percent in the mobile survey.

Santiago’s rating remained unchanged at three percent in the previous survey, but was up from one percent in the mobile survey. RC