Escudero, Marcos in statistical tie for top spot in VP survey

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Francis "Chiz" Escudero was in a statistical tie with Sen. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. although Escudero led by 2 points in a Bilang Pilipino-SWS Mobile Survey on vice presidential candidates conducted on Tuesday.

Escudero was chosen by 30 percent of respondents while Marcos got 28 percent. Camarines Rep. Leni Robredo, Liberal Party candidate, got 23 percent of respondents and 11 percent picked Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano.

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV got 4 percent and Sen. Gregorio Honasan II of the United Nationalist Alliance got two percent. According to the survey, as much as 3 percent of the respondents were previously undecided or had picked someone else in an earlier survey on March 18.

In that survey, Escudero and Marcos got 26 percent each while Robredo was picked by 19 percent of respondents. Cayetano had 16 percent, Honasan had six percent and Trillanes had 5 percent.

Escudero's running mate, Sen. Grace Poe also topped a Bilang Pilipino-SWS survey on presidential candidates done the same day. Poe had 35 percent of potential voters while Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte had 26 percent.

Vice President Jejomar Binay was in a statistical tie with former Local Government Secretary Manuel Roxas II at 18 percent to 17 percent. Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago had a score of 2 percent.

The survey originally had 1,200 respondents on March 18, but only 866 responded to the March 22 survey.