DAGUPAN CITY, Pangasinan—Vice President Jejomar Binay on Sunday urged voters to think twice before supporting Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who holds a 12-point lead in the latest Pulse Asia survey.
Binay made the statement in a press briefing at Dagupan Village Hotel a few hours before the start of the presidential debate at University of Pangasinan.
READ: Duterte takes 12-pt lead in latest ABS-CBN-Pulse Asia survey
Duterte was chosen by 34 percent of 4,000 respondents in the survey conducted on April 12 to 17, or before he made a joke about the 1989 rape-slay of Australian missionary Jaqueline Hamill that earned him scathing criticisms.
The mayor’s rating increased by two percent from his rating in the previous ABS-CBN survey conducted on April 5 to 10.
Duterte maintained a 12-point lead ahead of Sen. Grace Poe, who got 22 percent or three points down from the previous survey.
READ: Duterte flip-flops on rape apology
“Countrymen, we will be voting soon. Think carefully. Vote for the one you won’t regret, one you’ll be proud of. ‘Wow, this is the president I voted for; because of this person Filipinos’ lives improved and our country made progress,’” Binay said
Binay said he hoped voters would choose a candidate they could be proud of, not someone supposedly involved in extrajudicial killings like Duterte, who had openly admitted his ties to the vigilante group Davao Death Squad.
Duterte’s alleged links to the group, said to be responsible for summary killings in Davao City, have earned him the monicker “The Punisher.”
He said voters should not wait for their loved ones to be killed under a Duterte presidency.
“When the time comes, because you voted for him, he will be president and you will regret it,” Binay said. “My way of doing things to uplift our fellowmen’s lives, that’s the answer to our problems. Not through killing our children and elderly.”
He added: “You know, regret is always in the end. When your loved ones get killed, that’s when you’ll regret it. Your dead loved ones will not come back. Even those you’re not related to, your fellow Filipinos who got killed just because they were suspected of wrongdoing.”
Binay and Roxas are in a statistical tie at third place in the latest Pulse Asia survey, which has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 1.5 percentage points, while Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago is last with two percent.
Binay said his ratings had steadily increased, unlike his rivals who shed points.
“The No. 1 lost by several points, while I gained four,” Binay said.
The survey showed Binay had lost one point, ending up with a 19 percent rating.
Administration standard-bearer Mar Roxas came at a close 18 percent, unchanged from the previous survey.
But Binay maintains that “the real survey will be on Election Day.” RC