MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Grace Poe and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte were in a statistical tie in a Bilang Pilipino SWS Mobile Survey conducted on March 30, where close to 60 percent of respondents said they will likely not change their minds on who they want to vote for in May.
Poe had a national score of 34 percent with Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in second place with a score of 31 percent. Former Local Government Secretary Manuel Roxas II and Vice President Jejomar Binay both had scores of 17 percent while one percent of respondents picked Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago. One percent of respondents was undecided.
SWS said the survey has sampling error margins of ±4% for national percentages, ±7% in Metro Manila and Visayas, and ±8% in Balance Luzon and Mindanao because of a decline in the number of respondents since the surveys began.
Poe was the top pick among respondents in Luzon and the Visayas.
In Balance Luzon, Poe had a score of 39 percent against Binay's 22 percent. Duterte got a score of 21 percent, Roxas had a score of 16 percent and Santiago got one percent. In the Visayas, Poe scored 37 percent, ahead of Roxas who had 25 percent and Duterte with 23 percent. Binay got 12 percent of respondents while two percent picked Santiago.
Meanwhile, Duterte received 56 percent of respondents in Mindanao against Poe's 24 percent. Roxas received a score of 11 percent while Binay had nine percent. One percent was undecided while Santiago got zero percent of respondents.
Duterte also topped Metro Manila, with 32 percent of respondents picking him. Poe received a score of 26 percent while Binay had 19 percent and Roxas had 16 percent of respondents. Santiago received a score of one percent.
In a mobile survey conducted on March 22 -- two days after a presidential debate in Cebu -- Poe obtained a score of 35 percent, followed by Duterte with 26 percent, Binay with 18 percent, Roxas with 17 percent and Santiago with two percent.
Respondents were also asked the following question: "What is the possibility that you will change your mind regarding whom you will vote for as President of the Philippines in the coming elections?"
Of all respondents, 59 percent said they will definitely not change their minds and 21 percent said they have "probably decided already." Another 16 percent said they can still easily change their minds and five percent did not know whether they will change their minds on who to vote for.
"The Bilang Pilipino SWS Mobile Survey uses a nationally representative sample of 1,200 validated voters, 300 each in Metro Manila, Balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao," SWS said in its report on the survey.
"These voters were invited, and had then agreed, to be members of a panel of respondents to receive and reply to a few survey questions each day using mobile phones provided to them for free by Starmobile," it also said.