Duterte, Marcos top picks in SWS Q1 survey

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) — Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte took the lead among presidential candidates in the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, with 27 percent of respondents preferring him.

Meanwhile, Sen. Grace Poe, got a score of 23 percent in the First Quarter 2016 Social Weather Survey. Vice President Jejomar Binay and former Local Government secretary Manuel Roxas II had scores of 20 percent and 18 percent respectively.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who has been less active in the campaign because of health issues, got a score of 3 percent.

The survey was conducted between March 30 and April 2 through face-to-face interviews with 1,500 respondents across the Philippines and has sampling error margins of ±3 points.

In a separate Bilang Pilipino SWS mobile survey conducted on March 30, Poe had a score of 34 percent against Duterte's 31 percent. Roxas and Binay had 17 percent each while Santiago had one percent of respondents. That survey did not employ face-to-face interviews and had a smaller initial sample size of 1,200 validated voters.

Marcos tops survey on VP bets

Among candidates for vice president, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was the top choice, with 26 percent of respondents choosing him. This score is around the same as he received in the past two surveys.

Marcos had a score of 26 percent on the Bilang Pilipino-SWS mobile survey on March 30 and 25 percent in a face-to-face survey from March 8-11.

Sen. Francis Escudero, who had a score of 31 percent in the March 30 survey, had a score of 21 percent in the First Quarter survey, down from 28 percent in early March.

Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo was in a statistical tie with Escudero at 19 percent. This was lower than the 25 percent she got on March 30 and 22 percent she received in the March 8-11 survey.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, who engaged Marcos in a verbal tussle during the vice presidential debate on Sunday, had the support of 13 percent of respondents, about the same score that he received in the two surveys in March.

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Sen. Gregorio Honasan II had a score of 5 percent, up from 1 percent in the March 30 mobile survey. Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV also got a score of 5 percent. — with a report by Vanessa Bernardo