Inday Sara tops Pulse Asia’s latest voter survey

MANILA, Philippines — Presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara “Inday” Duterte was the top choice of about a fourth of survey respondents who were asked in November who they would vote for as president, according to the latest “Ulat ng Bayan” survey conducted by Pulse Asia Inc.

In the noncommissioned survey conducted from Nov. 23 to Dec. 2, Pulse Asia asked 2,400 representative adults the question: “Of the people on this list, whom would you vote for as president of the Philippines if the May 2022 elections were held today and they were the candidates?”

Pulse Asia provided a list but allowed respondents to name others not on the list. For the presidential bid, Duterte was the top choice of about one in every four Filipinos (26 percent) followed by former Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sen. Grace Poe who tied with 14 percent, Manila Mayor Francisco Domagoso (12 percent), Sen. Emmanuel Pacquiao (10 percent), and Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo (8 percent).

Duterte led greatly in Mindanao obtaining 58 percent of the votes in the area and across all socioeconomic classes with 27 percent among Class ABC, 26 percent among Class D and 23 percent among Class E.

On the other hand, 4 percent of Filipino adults still do not know whom they would elect as president, refuse to identify their preferred presidential bet, or are not voting for anyone as president.

As for the May 2022 vice presidential election, results of the survey showed that three individuals are statistically tied for the post of vice president—Domagoso (17 percent), Duterte (16 percent) and Senate President Vicente Sotto III (14 percent).

For the Senatorial race, most of the Filipino adults (58 percent) already have 12 preferred senatorial candidates for the May 2022 elections and among those that have a statistical chance of winning if the said elections coincided with the conduct of survey interviews were Pacquiao (62.1 percent), broadcaster and TV host Raffy Tulfo (54.3 percent), Duterte (50.9 percent), Domagoso (48.4 percent), Sorsogon Gov. Francis Escudero (46.7 percent) Taguig City-Pateros Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano (46 percent).

“Pulse Asia undertakes Ulat ng Bayan surveys on its own without any party singularly commissioning the research effort,” Pulse Asia said in a statement.

The survey had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2 percentage points. Subnational estimates in each of the geographic areas covered in the survey (Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao) had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.

—Inquirer Research