‘Our survey showed Rama victory’

CERWIN Eviota,  public relations consultant of Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, was not surprised by his client’s victory.

He pointed out that the trend was reflected in a private pre-election poll made in late April which was released to the media on May 1.

“ I reviewed the survey that a group of Manila-based investors commissioned, as conducted in the last 2 weeks of April and released and shared to us on May 1. It reflected how the votes were eventually cast.

“With this, we expected Mayor Rama to win by at least 5,000 votes and at most 15,000 votes over Rep. Osmeña.  We shared the data and showed the graphs during the May 6 press briefing by Team Rama general campaign manager Joey Daluz,” Eviota said.

The PR practitioner said a key factor in Rama’s win was his  high approval rating in the weeks leading to election day.

“Indeed, his persistent call  to all executive department employees to do nothing but ‘serve, serve, serve’ bore fruit,” he said.

The survey targeted 8 percent of the voting population or 40,000 respondents with pollsters from Manila and Negros Occidental.

Google Earth aided in how the pollsters gathered the respondents based on the density of households in specific sites in every barangay, said Eviota.

He admitted it was  close to call in the case of Vice Mayor candidate Edgar Labella against incumbent Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young.

Team Rama  used the survey to identify where to focus and what to do in the remaining days of the campaign, said Eviota.