SENATOR Benigno Aquino III was the most favored candidate in a survey of next year’s presidential elections, beating Senator Manuel Villar by a 25-point margin, Pulse Asia reported yesterday.Aquino, the Liberal Party’s standard-bearer, was the top choice of 44 percent of the respondents in a nationwide survey of 1,800 adults, beating the Nacionalista Party’s Villar who took 19 percent.
The face-to-face survey, conducted from Oct. 22 to 30, has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
Among the vice presidential hopefuls, Aquino’s running mate, Senator Manuel Roxas II, also came out first with 37 percent, eclipsing Senator Loren Legarda who received 23 percent.
Legarda, who belongs to the Nationalist People’s Coalition, is expected to be proclaimed today as Villar’s running mate.
The respondents favored Aquino, who was included in the Pulse Asia survey for the first time, because they felt he had a clean public record or that he was not corrupt.
“I’m elated, given the fact that we have been stressing this is a people’s campaign,” Aquino said on learning the survey results.
“We are not using traditional means to achieve that number. It is really the people who are behind our campaign.”
In a separate survey last month by Social Weather Stations, 60 percent of the respondents named Aquino, 49, among “the three best successors” to President Gloria Arroyo, followed by Villar with 18 percent.
Unlike the other aspirants who declared their presidential ambition months earlier, Aquino announced he would run only in September following an outpouring of sympathy for his mother, former President Corazon Aquino, who died of colon cancer in August.
In the Pulse Asia survey, the only other politicians to post a double-digit score were Senator Francisco Escudero (13 percent) and deposed President Joseph Estrada (11 percent).
Vice President Noli de Castro, who registered the biggest drop in electoral support, managed only 4 percent.
Administration standard-bearer and Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro had 2 percent, while Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Bayani Fernando and preacher Eddie Villanueva both had 1 percent.
Ana Maria Tabunda, Pulse Asia research fellow, said Aquino enjoyed majority support in the top economic classes (51 percent) and in the Visayas (53 percent).
The Liberal Party candidate also received large pluralities in Luzon and Mindanao (both 41 percent) and the poorer classes (44 percent).
The other prospective vice presidential aspirants were rated as follows: Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, 13 percent; De Castro, 11 percent; Senator Jinggoy Estrada, 4 percent; Senator Ramon Revilla Jr., 4 percent; and Fernando, Senator Richard Gordon and Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno, 1 percent each.
Fourteen of the 66 aspirants for a Senate seat had a statistical chance of winning, with Jinggoy Estrada leading the list at 46.7 percent, Pulse Asia said.
He is followed by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago (42.4 percent), former Senator Franklin Drilon (38.6 percent), Senator Pia Cayetano (37.2 percent), Revilla (36.6 percent), Binay (36.6 percent), Roxas (36.3 percent), Senators Jamby Madrigal (31.6 percent) and Aquilino Pimentel (31.4 percent); former Economic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto (30.6 percent), former Senator Sergio Osmeña III (28.5 percent), Dangerous Drugs Board chairman Vicente Sotto III (27.4 percent), game show host Willie Revillame (27.4 percent), and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile (26.6 percent).
TV host Edu Manzano, who was picked as Teodoro’s running mate last week, lost 10.9 percentage points in the survey for a senatorial seat.
Source: http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=2009/november/17/news1.isx&d=/2009/november/17
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