Davao mayor edges Grace in ‘munggo’ prexy poll

Presidential candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Presidential candidate Senator Grace Poe    INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS/RAFFY LERMA

SAN JOSE CITY—His “gutter language” notwithstanding, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has bested his rivals in the presidential race in the 2016 staging of the “Munggo Election Survey” at the city branch of a local bookstore chain.

Duterte, who has been under fire for his remarks about a woman who was raped and killed during a hostage incident at a Davao prison in 1989, led Sen. Grace Poe in the initial tally of the munggo (mung beans) survey initiated by Pandayan Bookshop.

In the ongoing survey, conducted by the bookshop’s branches in Luzon,  customers are handed a munggo bean when they pay for their purchases. They are asked to drop the bean in 350-milliliter plastic water bottles bearing the names of the presidential bets.

“Those who come to the store but do not buy anything, are also given a munggo bean and are politely asked to participate in the survey,” said Brian Alvarez, the bookstore officer here.

The phrase, “Bumoto ayon sa prinsipyo (Vote according to your principles),” is posted atop the bottles.

The bottles are placed at the entrance of the bookstore. A security guard has been posted to prevent cheating and to make sure no one accidentally topples the bottles.

As of Sunday at the bookshop branch here, the Duterte bottle led with 52 centimeters of mung beans, while the bottles of Poe contained 50 cm, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago 20 cm, Vice President Jejomar Binay 7 cm, and Mar Roxas 5 cm.

In the Cabanatuan City branch, however, Duterte was tied with Santiago with 33 cm of mung beans; followed by Poe, 27 cm; Binay, 8 cm; and Roxas, 7 cm.

Poe ranked higher than Duterte by 1 cm at the store’s Guimba branch. Her bottle contained 11 cm of mung beans, followed by Roxas, 7 cm; Binay, 4 cm; and Santiago, 3 cm.

In the store’s Talavera branch, Duterte trailed Poe.

Duterte was leading among presidential candidates in the latest Social Weather Stations survey.

“Our customers here number an average of 300 daily. They come from this city and the nearby Science City of Muñoz and the towns of Lupao, Carranglan, Llanera and Rizal,” Alvarez said.

The mung bean survey was started in 2004 by Gerardo CabochanJr., the head of the Cabochan Group of Companies, which owns the bookshop. The bookshop has 80 branches in Luzon.

“We are staging the survey just as an amusing sidelight. But we also intend to get the people’s pulse on their preferred presidential candidate,” Alvarez said.

Started last month, the survey would end on April 30.

In 2004, the late Fernando Poe Jr. was the runaway winner in the  mung bean survey. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo won that year’s election.

In 2010, Sen. Manuel Villar bested then Sen. Benigno Aquino III in the survey. Aquino won the presidency.