According to a statement from the Lacson camp yesterday, the mock election was sponsored by the Alert and Concerned Employees of SSS or ACCESS.
Lacson received 501 votes among 1,539 respondents at the SSS main office in Quezon City, followed by his opposition rival, movie actor Fernando Poe Jr., with 423; evangelist Eddie Villanueva, 219; and former Sen. Raul Roco, 194.
President Arroyo was poor fifth with 152 votes. Disqualified presidential aspirant Eddie Gil received 11 votes. Some 39 SSS employees were undecided on who they would vote for president.
A separate mock election was conducted at the SSS Novaliches office. Twenty—six employees voted for Lacson, three for Poe and one for Mrs. Arroyo.
In Mindanao, a survey conducted by The Mindanao Times, a local newspaper, showed that Lacson was the choice of 24.6 percent of the respondents, followed by Villanueva, 21.6 percent; Poe, 20.7 percent; Roco, 17.2 percent; and Mrs. Arroyo, 15.9 percent.
Lacson’s office took the survey results from the newspaper’s website, www.mindanaotimes.com.ph.
A similar survey conducted by Baguio Midland Newspaper among 2,000 respondents showed Lacson receiving the support of 24.6 percent, followed by Mrs. Arroyo, 20.96 percent; and Poe, 12.71 percent.
The former Philippine National Police chief had topped mock polls done in other government offices, including Philippine Information Agency (PIA), Philippine Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Broadcasting Network (NBN-Channel 4), three agencies under Press Secretary Milton Alingod.
In the mock election conducted in Alingod’s agencies last March 30-31, Lacson received 316 votes, followed by Poe, 65; Mrs.Arroyo, 55; Raul Roco, 43; and Villanueva, 32.
Lacson has repeatedly said he could believe what he described as "local surveys" but not those conducted by Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia. — Jess Diaz