Noynoy’s rating dwindles to 31%

12/14/2009





Original Story: http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/20091214hed3.html


A fourth quarter survey conducted by the Center, which is manned by Ed Malay, also a spokesman of former President Fidel Ramos, showed that while Sen. Noynoy Aquino still leads in the survey of presidentiables, his lead has however, dwindled as rival candidates inch their way up using the public forums to focus attention on themselves.

Some 31 percent or 372 of the 1,200 respondents said they will vote for Noynoy Aquino while 24 percent or 288 respondents said they will go for Sen. Manny Villar.

Former President Erap Estrada who has manifested his desire to reclaim the presidency from which he was ousted but who remains popular among the masses, improved to 19 percent while former Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro benefited from the positive reviews that the Center claimed he has been generating from the spate of public debates among the presidential aspirants. The survey showed that Teodoro has climbed up to double-digit figures with 10 percent.

Sen. Dick Gordon who seemed to have clinched a potential winning tandem by pairing himself with former MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando has also begun to make his presence felt with an 8 percent rating, Malay stated.

Although Aquino has been seen to participate in these presidential debates, the survey also found that the debates have not done Aquino any good, with the Center’s analysis saying that “voters have begun to doubt (Aquino’s) capacity to lead the country out of the political and economic disequilibrium” along with news columns and blind items adverting to his state of health, which have “started to take its toll.”

Malay said the drop in the survey rating of Noynoy Aquino can be explained in many ways:

one is that it is difficult to sustain the euphoria associated with the death and burial of the late President Cory Aquino as well as the young Aquino’s attempt to ride on the popularity of the 1986 People Power Revolt because these two events are now being offset by what we call as ‘the negatives’ or the chink in his armor such as the Hacienda Luisita massacre a few years back, the newspaper columns and blind items pointing to Noynoy’s state of health, and what has been reported as the circumvention of the Agrarian Reform Law when the then Aquino administration approved the stock swap option giving farmers in Hacienda Luisita stock certificates instead of the pieces of land they were supposed to acquire under the law.

On the vice presidential race, the Center’s analysis said that “What was once billed as a sure victory in the vice presidential race is fast turning into a mound of problems for Mar Roxas (28 percent) who now has to contend with the imponderables that continue to hound his vice presidential bid, one of which was his decision to marry television host Korina Sanchez as his campaign appears to have run aground, with Sen. Loren Legarda (25 percent), moving up to narrow the lead of Roxas to just 3 points,” the survey analysis said.

Again this is significant, according to Malay, because the 3-point lead is just like not having any lead at all especially if we consider the margin of error of +.8% and this could go either way. How Mar Roxas and Loren Legarda will pursue their respective campaign will decide who between them will be sworn in on June 30, 2010. Both are acknowledged as veterans of past political wars with Legarda topping the 1998 senatorial polls at a time when Mar Roxas was into his second term as congressman representing Capiz and being recruited to become the Trade and Industry Secretary of the Estrada administration.

“Roxas made an about face in 2001 and joined the People Power II revolt that ousted Estrada and installed then Vice President Gloria Arroyo to serve the unfinished term of Estrada. Roxas then ran under the pro-PGMA administration ticket in 2004 and topped the senatorial elections of that year while Legarda who ran as for vice president under the opposition lost in the national elections that was marred by allegations of fraud. Legarda then ran for senator in 2007 and topped the senatorial elections making her the first woman in Philippine political history to have topped two senatorial elections. It is possible, however, that Erap diehards may still be harboring some resentment toward Roxas who dumped Estrada in 2001 in the face of a growing mass at Edsa.

What bears watching, however, are the ratings generated by Makati Mayor Jojo Binay and former MMDA chair Bayani Fernando who have moved up to third and fourth, respectively, behind Roxas and Legarda with Binay garnering 16 percent and Fernando moving up to 10 percent. Again, just like Roxas and Legarda, how Binay and Fernando will assemble their campaign team and chose their respective political agendas will determine their chances in the coming vice presidential elections.

The Center also predicted a tight race among Villar, Estrada, Aquino, Gilbert Teodoro and Richard Gordon.

“What appeared to be an insurmountable lead and a sure victory at the polls following the outpouring of sympathy with the death and burial of the late President Corazon Aquino has now turned into a myth as the double-figure lead of the young Aquino has now dipped into a single-digit with only seven points separating Aquino (31 percent) from former survey race leader Sen. Manny Villar (24 percent) in the latest monthly tracking survey conducted by The Issues and Advocacy Center (The Center) from Dec. 2 to 6, 2009 with 1,200 respondents pro-rated to the number of voters in the 2007 mid-term polls.

The survey also said that the Noynoy-Mar, Villar-Loren are now running abreast of each other, as imponderables continue to hound Mar Roxas.

It added that the “wise use of logistics will spell difference in the 2010 campaign.”

Malay said the Center earlier already noticed a “stationary dive” in the case of Noynoy Aquino when its survey figures from its last survey conducted on Oct. 19 to 26, 2009 exposed the so-called Noynoy bubble as prone to being pricked even at a time when the other political parties and groups still have to get organized.

He added that his survey outfit decided to conduct its tracking survey on Dec. 2 to 6, 2009 since this is the time when all the certificates of candidacies (CoCs) for all the national positions to be contested shall have been filed. With all the CoCs in, Malay said the list of candidates was not just pruned down to its realistic level but that “we have already removed the ifs and buts as we can now start generating an accurate assessment of how the Filipino public appreciates the value and worth of the presidential aspirants.”

Using a sample size of 1,200 respondents that were distributed proportionately to the electoral base of registered voters in 2007 and with a margin of error of + 2.8 percent and a confidence level of 95 percent, the respondents were asked “Who would you vote for from among the list of 9 presidential aspirants (Noynoy Aquino, Manny Villar, Erap Estrada, Gibo Teodoro, Dick Gordon, Bro. Eddie Villanueva, JC de los Reyes, Jamby Madrigal and Nicky Perlas) if elections were to be held today?”


Original Story: http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/20091214hed3.html