Digong up by 12 pts; Bongbong keeps lead

WITH BARELY two weeks before the May 9 elections, presidential aspirant Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte and vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., appeared to have tightened their grip on the top two posts at stake in the balloting, the latest results of a Pulse Asia survey showed.

The noncommissioned “Pulso ng Bayan” poll released on Tuesday found 35 percent of 1,800 respondents who are registered voters would support the Davao City mayor.

Following Duterte were Sen. Grace Poe with 23 percent, Liberal Party standard-bearer Mar Roxas and Vice President Jejomar Binay, who were virtually tied at third place with 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively, and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago with 2 percent.

The survey, which had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.3 percentage points, was conducted on April 16-20, during which a short video of Duterte’s scandalous “rape joke” during a campaign sortie triggered negative criticisms on social media.

Pulse Asia also found that Senator Marcos had gained solo lead against his rivals, getting the approval of 29 percent of the respondents.

Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo placed second with 24 percent; followed by the erstwhile front-runner, Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, with 18 percent; Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, 16 percent; Sen. Gringo Honasan, 4 percent; and Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, 3 percent.

In the previous Pulse Asia poll on Feb. 15-20, Poe and Binay were virtually tied at first place with 26 percent and 25 percent, respectively. Roxas and Duterte shared the second spot with 21 percent each and Santiago had 3 percent.

Also in the previous survey of vice presidential candidates, Escudero and Marcos were statistically tied at first place with 29 percent and 26 percent, respectively. They were followed by Robredo (19 percent), Cayetano (12 percent), Trillanes (6 percent) and Honasan (4 percent).

Areas, classes

The latest Pulso ng Bayan survey also showed that Duterte obtained leads in Metro Manila (40 percent) and Mindanao (58 percent), while he (32 percent) and Roxas (27 percent) shared the lead in the Visayas.

Poe led in the rest of Luzon with 28 percent while Binay (23 percent) and Duterte (22 percent) were virtually tied.

Duterte topped in all socioeconomic groups, scoring 43 percent among Classes ABC, 40 percent among Class E and 32 percent among Class D.

In the vice presidential race, Marcos took the lead in Metro Manila (39 percent) and the rest of Luzon (37 percent), while Robredo dominated in the Visayas (33 percent) and Cayetano in Mindanao (34 percent).

By class, Marcos and Robredo  shared the lead among Classes ABC (36 percent and 32 percent, respectively) and Class D (30 percent and 25 percent, respectively). Cayetano (23 percent), Marcos (22 percent), Robredo (21 percent) and Escudero (18 percent) posted the same support levels among Class E. They were followed by Cayetano (16 percent), Honasan (4 percent) and Trillanes (3 percent).

Pulse Asia also found that Poe was the most preferred second-choice presidential candidate of 32 percent of respondents.

Binay, Duterte and Roxas were statistically tied at second with 16 percent, 14 percent and 13 percent, respectively, while Santiago was the second choice of 6 percent.

Meanwhile, 27 percent picked Escudero as their alternative choice for their original candidate.

Statistically tied at second in terms of second-choice voter preference were Robredo (15 percent), Marcos (14 percent) and Cayetano (14 percent).  Fewer either named Trillanes (7 percent) or Honasan (4 percent) as their alternatives.

Earlier poll

The latest poll overlapped with another Pulse Asia survey commissioned by ABS-CBN done April 12-17 and results of which were released on Sunday.

The poll, which had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 1.5 percentage points, showed that Duterte had a commanding lead of 34 percent of 4,000 respondents against his rivals Poe (22 percent), Binay (19 percent), Roxas (18 percent) and Santiago (2 percent).

The same poll also found that 29 percent picked Marcos as the next Vice President; Robredo and Escudero tied at second with 23 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

Following them were Cayetano (16 percent), Honasan (4 percent) and Trillanes (3 percent).

Alliance denied

Duterte shrugged off reports that the Poe and Roxas camps had forged a tactical alliance to bring him down.

“I am not scared and I shouldn’t be scared,” Duterte said in an interview on the sidelines of the birthday celebration of his friend, pastor Apollo Quiboloy, on Monday night in Davao City.

“If they will pull me down, they will also be pulling each other down—just like crabs. No different from the crabs that I know,” he said.

In an interview in Vigan City, Poe said: “It’s more important for me to believe the survey if you rank low so that I wouldn’t relax and I’d be more motivated to continue going on sorties nationwide.” With reports from Niña P. Calleja and Gil Cabacungan