MANILA, Philippines - Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Sen. Francis Escudero topped the pre-election survey commissioned by Manila Broadcasting Co. (MBC) and its flagship station dzRH.
In the presidential survey, Duterte emerged as the winner with 30.25 percent of 7,436 respondents, the biggest random sampling so far.
Sen. Grace Poe placed second with 25.14 percent, followed by Vice President Jejomar Binay with 18.63 percent, former interior secretary Manuel Roxas II with 14.92 percent and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago with 6.22 percent.
The MBC-dzRH survey was conducted on Nov. 28, a week after Duterte confirmed that he was running for president but just a couple of days before he was quoted cursing at Pope Francis in his speech during the PDP-Laban proclamation, and before the Second Division of the Commission on Elections disqualified Poe over the residency issue.
In the vice presidential polls, Escudero emerged as the winner with 28.49 percent.
Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. came in second with 24.62 percent, followed by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano with 18.25 percent. Congresswoman Leni Robredo ranked fourth by garnering 12.53 percent, while Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV placed fifth with 7.75 percent and Sen. Gregorio Honasan at sixth place with 6.11 percent.
In the senatorial race, reelectionist Sen. Vicente Sotto III and former senator Panfilo Lacson led the survey with 57.63 percent and 54.01 percent, respectively.
At third is Sen. Franklin Drilon (47.7.4 percent), followed by former senator Juan Miguel Zubiri (46.97 percent), Sen. Ralph Recto (45.98 percent), former senator Francis Pangilinan (43.33 percent), Sen. Sergio Osmeña III (37.89 percent), former senator Richard Gordon (37.07 percent), boxing icon and Sarangani Rep. Manny Pacquiao (36.64 percent), former justice secretary Leila de Lima (36.26 percent), former Akbayan representative Risa Hontiveros (33.81 percent), Sen. Teofisto Guingona III (26.22 percent), actor Edu Manzano (21.38 percent), Mark Lapid (21.18 percent), and Sherwin Gatchalian (19.46 percent).
Emeer 2 Research Services conducted face-to-face interviews with the 7,436 survey respondents.
Twenty-five households were sampled in each of 300 randomly selected barangays throughout different provinces all over the country.
Researchers tapped male and female registered voters coming from ABCDE households. Each respondent was given a questionnaire resembling a sample ballot and asked for one’s choice for president, vice president and senators.
Survey results were weighed against the latest voting population of each province, and carry a margin of error of 1.14 percent.
The MBC-dzRH pre-election survey will be conducted two more times prior to the May elections.
Miriam tops UPLB mock polls
Meanwhile, Santiago emerged as the winner by a landslide in mock polls conducted at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) in Laguna.
A total of 1,507 students, or more than half of the 2,292 students who participated in the mock polls, voted for Santiago, according to the results released by political science instructor Miguel Enrico Ayson.
Ayson said the mock polls at UPLB were conducted by his political science class last Nov. 26, where students eligible to vote in the 2016 elections were qualified to take part.
“(My) students were the ones who conducted the activity from the planning, organizing, up to the mock elections proper. They set up booths in different college buildings to accommodate participants,” he told The STAR.
Following Santiago is Duterte with 420 votes, Roxas, 114; Poe, 100 and Binay, 46.
Eighty students voted for other candidates who were not identified in the results, while 25 students abstained from choosing a presidential bet.
In the vice presidential race, Escudero had a slight lead with 584 votes over Robredo with 538.
They were followed by Marcos with 387 votes; Cayetano, 359; Trillanes, 134 and Honasan, 71.– With Janvic Mateo