By Abigail L. HoPhilippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:30:00 12/22/2009
Filed Under: Inquirer Politics, Eleksyon 2010, Economy and Business and Finance, Opinion surveys
Original Story: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20091222-243365/Makati-businessmen-pick-Aquino-Roxas-tandem
MANILA, Philippines—Senators Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and Manuel “Mar” Roxas II are the candidates favored by the Makati Business Club (MBC) to win the presidential and vice presidential races.
A mailed survey, conducted among MBC’s more than 800 members from Dec. 8 to 18, revealed that 61 percent would vote for Aquino, while 78 percent would vote for Roxas.
“I think (Noynoy was chosen by the majority) because corruption was the No. 1 issue that we want addressed, and Noynoy seemed the most fit to do that,” MBC executive director Alberto Lim said Monday.
Lim said Aquino had shown that he would make a good president, based on what the senator had been saying publicly about his platform of government.
“It’s not just bloodlines that he has going for him,” Lim said. “We’ve had a lot of very intelligent people lead us before—(Ferdinand) Marcos and (Gloria) Arroyo. We should learn from the past and focus not just on intelligence. What matters more now is good governance.”
Aquino emerging No. 1 in the MBC survey was actually not surprising, he said, as this followed the national trend, based on surveys conducted by different groups.
Lim said what was more surprising was former Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro landing on the second spot instead of known businessman Sen. Manuel Villar.
“Gibo has a cleaner image than Villar, as Villar is being linked to various issues of corruption,” Lim said.
Teodoro got the nod of 14 percent of the respondents, while Villar only had 7 percent.
Others who figured in the survey were Sen. Richard Gordon with 3 percent and former President Joseph Estrada with 1 percent. Fourteen percent of those surveyed were still undecided.
For the vice presidential survey, Roxas led all other candidates by a margin of at least 68 percentage points. He garnered the votes of 78 percent of the respondents.
Lim said this was not at all surprising.
“Mar comes from business—he used to be an investment banker—so businessmen are comfortable with him. Also, he made a sacrifice to give way to Noynoy. He also has a clean image, not tainted by corruption,” Lim said.
Other vice presidential aspirants that MBC members said they would vote for included former Metro Manila Development Authority Chair Bayani Fernando (10 percent), Sen. Loren Legarda (3 percent), Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay (1 percent), and former Optical Media Board Chair Edu Manzano (1 percent).
In the conduct of the survey, the respondents were not given a list of candidates to choose from. Instead, they were asked an open-ended question: “Who among the candidates running in the 2010 elections would you prefer to see as the next Philippine president and vice president?”
Of MBC’s more than 800 members, 13 percent participated in the survey. Of this number, 85 percent were Filipinos and 7 percent were foreigners. The rest failed to indicate their nationality.
Apart from their presidential and vice presidential candidates, MBC members were also asked to name the three most significant issues that they wanted the next administration to address.
Topping the list were corruption (79 percent), peace and order (35 percent), and infrastructure (24 percent). Other important issues mentioned were the economy (20 percent), poverty (17 percent) and fiscal deficit (15 percent).
Original Story: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20091222-243365/Makati-businessmen-pick-Aquino-Roxas-tandem
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