What the numbers are telling us

The latest numbers from Pulse Asia and SWS surveys came in quick succession early this week. The big story is Duterte pulling away from his rivals in the presidential race while Bongbong Marcos is doing the same in the vice presidential contest.

The reactions from Vice President Binay and administration bet Mar Roxas were predictable. Both say that in the end, their extensive political machinery will win them the election. Binay was emphatic in saying Roxas is his real rival and no one else. Binay was also sure he would win by four million votes.

So it is people versus machinery? Voters should take this as a challenge to prove the old politicians wrong. If you don’t like Duterte, go for Poe or Miriam to prove Pinoy voters are not sheep to be herded by the machinery of Binay or Roxas.

 The survey numbers indicate a strong sentiment against business as usual. The headline numbers indicate that people are stark raving mad at the status quo and are ready to take risks.

Take Duterte, for example. He should scare the hell out of people in the upper crust ABC social economic segment. But surprise!… Duterte has the support of 41 percent of society’s upper crust. Apparently, the manicured set is disregarding Duterte’s lack of fine manners and rough proletarian looks.

And Duterte is also leading in the National Capital Region, that’s Imperial Manila he has denounced time and again. Duterte is followed closely by Grace Poe, another independent candidate. Duterte leads her by only two percentage points in NCR.

Many find it surprising that Mar Roxas is doing so badly among the ABC socio economic class and in Metro Manila. He should be top choice of the upper crust in NCR to which he belongs. But no, they are going for Duterte or Poe.

Even with the machinery of the party in power and our tax money being distributed disguised as government programs by the likes of Sec Alcala, Mar Roxas is still doing badly. Roxas is below 20 percent across all socio-economic and geographic groups except for the Visayas.

  Indeed, in the socio-economic class E, the most benefited by the conditional cash transfer program and other giveaways from government, Mar was least liked among the leading candidates at 19 percent (Poe 29, Duterte 26 and Binay 23). If that means the very poor cannot be easily bought, that’s good news. Or maybe the harsh treatment of hungry Kidapawan farmers opened their eyes.

So, what is going on?

 I think it is like the stock market. When sentiment is strong, we can ride on it or take a break as we try to understand what drives it. It is probably like the Trump phenomenon, with anger and frustration driving the sentiment among potential voters.

Yet, people (half the respondents) say they like P-Noy, but P-Noy can’t seem to transfer that to Mar. Maybe many Pinoys are frustrated with P-Noy than they let on with their answers to survey takers. 

Folks are probably thinking it is no use saying anything negative about him because he will soon be out of office anyway. But as for voting for his anointed, that’s different.

It doesn’t help Mar that his personality does not make it easy for him to connect with people below his social class. It is also no help that he had been tagged as one of the officials responsible for many of our miseries arising from his year long stint at DOTC. And if you happen to be a disaster victim, the bad reviews of his Yolanda performance at DILG haunts him.

 Simply put, people are mad about how things are, specially in vote rich Metro Manila where people suffer the consequences of Mar’s failures daily. Mar showed callousness to our miseries by standing by Sec Jun Abaya and that GM of NAIA. By doing that, he took on a lot of the negative feelings we have about infra failures.

 Do you have fears of being robbed or raped? That’s Mar too because he once had control over the national police as DILG Secretary.  

In hindsight, if all Mar did was stay in the sidelines over the past six years or became a senator, he might have been better off today. His management competence wouldn’t have been tested. Now we know his managerial limits.  

The pre-2010 Mar enjoyed a good image because he only held talking jobs at the Senate and DTI. That good image went down the drain when he had to run vital departments during the Aquino years and failed.

But why Duterte? I have my personal reservations about Duterte’s ability to deliver. But in a battle of images, his image as a decisive public official who will clean up government is a strong one.  

My big fear is that Duterte will keep his word and quit after six months because he will certainly fail… It could well be that voting for Duterte is actually a vote for Bongbong Marcos as president.

Why Bongbong? That’s my big wonder in this election. I can understand if he takes the northern provinces by storm, but Metro Manila? 

I can only recall the explanation given by call center workers to my friend when he conducted a straw vote among his employees. They will vote for Duterte and Bongbong because they want to deliver the strongest possible message to the powers that be about how unhappy they are. They want to give the current administration the dirty finger.

There is a general impression that clueless young people are driving Bongbong’s numbers up. But wait a minute… the SWS numbers show that Bongbong’s support is highest among middle aged people and not among the youth. Marcos is more popular among the 35-years-old and older, so called martial law babies, where he got 36 percent.

Interestingly, voter preference for Marcos was lowest in the 18-24 age group, where he got only 20 percent. It was Escudero who scored highest in the 18-24 age group, where he got 38 percent. In the 35-44 age group, Escudero got 25 percent.

That Marcos is leading at all can be blamed on our post-EDSA administrations who all failed to uplift the condition of our country and people. Many of the infrastructures we see are of the Marcos era.

 In that amount of time since EDSA, Vietnam has emerged as a fast rising economic powerhouse. The rave reviews of the credit rating agencies and financial analysts crediting P-Noy’s economic stewardship sounds hollow. At the grassroots, hunger is still a daily reality.

 Indeed, a gathering of hungry farmers asking for rice are dispersed by live bullets. Worse, old women who joined the mass action are now in jail for supposedly assaulting police officers.

As someone in the D socio economic class puts it, i-susugal ko na lang ang boto ko kay Duterte. Sabi nila medyo nakakatakot pero iba siya… baka bumuti din ang buhay namin.

New word

ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION: the inability to be aroused over any of the candidates for president, put forth before us in the 2016 election year.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is  [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco