Duterte, Chiz top latest Magdalo survey

MANILA, Philippines – Presidential aspirant and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte, and vice presidential aspirant, Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, emerged as the most preferred presidential and vice-presidential bet on the latest result of the Magdalo party-list pre-election survey.

For the presidential race, Duterte garnered 31.9 percent while Magdalo-backed Sen. Grace Poe came in close second with 26 percent amid disqualification cases against her.

Vice President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay placed third with 23.6 percent followed by former Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II with 13.5 percent.

Remaining presidential candidates Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago ranked fifth with 4 percent while former ambassador and Overseas Filipino Worker Rep. Roy Señeres garnered 0.1 percent at the sixth spot.

On the other hand, Escudero maintained the top spot for vice presidential aspirants with 28.8 percent.

Santiago’s running mate Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos took the second spot with 22.3 percent while Duterte’s running mate Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano placed third with 16.6 percent.

Liberal Party’s Leni Robredo came in at fourth place with 11.7 percent followed by Magdalo-supported Sen. Antonio “Sonny” Trillanes IV with 10.6 percent. Binay’s running mate, Sen. Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan got 8 percent in the survey.

The Magdalo party-list conducted the survey from December 9 to 11 with almost 3,000 respondents distributed across different regions of the country. It employed a multi-stage probability sampling design with its respondents and has a margin error of 1.8 percent.

Magdalo Rep. Francisco Ashley Acedillo said the respondents were provided with the list of known candidates for president and vice presidents and were asked who among the candidates will they vote for if election would be held today.

“If elections would be held today, who among the following candidates would you vote for?” the survey question read.

Acedillo noted that Poe’s disqualification case caused confusion since some were asking if she was already disqualified from the race. However, he said they expect the survey results to change once the Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc and the Supreme Court release its final ruling on Poe and Duterte’s candidacy.

“One of the observations during the survey is that a significant number of respondents presumed that Senator Poe was already disqualified in running for president, or were asking if she was already disqualified. Since our researchers are not allowed to engage with the respondents to avoid influencing their answers, this issue was not clarified to them,” Acedillo said.

“We expect that these figures and the candidates’ ranking will continue to notably change, especially when the Comelec en banc and the Supreme Court, eventually, will release their decision on Sen. Poe’s and Mayor Duterte’s candidacy,” he added.