Close Mindanao fight between GMA, FPJ

GENERAL SANTOS CITY — Opposition presidential aspirant Fernando Poe Jr. is unlikely to score a landslide victory over President Arroyo in Mindanao, says a recent survey conducted by a Mindanao-based non-government organization.

The survey for national candidates by the Mindanao Politics and Governance Watch (MPGW), a non-sectarian and non-partisan organization composed of Mindanao scholars and intellectuals, showed a close race between Poe and Arroyo in Mindanao .

Overall Poe ranked No. 1 by obtaining 34.1 percent of votes, while Mrs. Arroyo got 27.9 percent. Trailing them is independent opposition candidate Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who got only 8.3 percent.

Of the six regions in Mindanao, two had Mrs. Arroyo ahead. In Southern Mindanao, she got 73 votes, or 36.5 percent of the 200 respondents, while in CARAGA she got 77 votes, or 44 percent of 175 respondents.

Poe got only 30.5 and 38 percent, respectively, from the two regions, which are recognized as the political bailiwicks of the Lorenzos and Barbers, known political allies of Mrs. Arroyo.

But the survey showed Poe leading Arroyo by a wide margin in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), where he got 51.3 percent against Mrs. Arroyo’s 22.3. The survey also showed Poe to be the favored candidate of respondents who identified themselves as Muslim.

Dr. Macapado Muslim, MPGW chairman and chancellor of the Mindanao State University in General Santos City, believes that Poe’s lead over Arroyo is slim and could be overhauled by the large number of undecided votes.

"But there would be a possible tie between Poe and Arroyo a few days before the election day because of its slim margin," he said.

Muslim placed the survey’s margin of error at plus or minus 3.5 percentage points and the number of undecided voters at a high 22.6 percent.

He said the survey was conducted from March 16 to 23. It targeted qualified voters living in Mindanao and aged 18 years and over. Face-to-face interviewing was used to obtain information from a random sample of 1,150 qualified voters.

Muslim said the group intends to conduct its second election survey, also for national positions only, from April 15 to 22.

"We’re doing these poll surveys because of our keen interest in monitoring and understanding the realities of politics and governance in Mindanao, and helping address the problems confronting the tri-people therein — Christians, Muslims and Lumads," he said.

He said the results of the survey showed "the real sentiments of the Mindanao voters."

Dr. Beethoven Morales, a mathematics expert and the MPGW director of research, said their survey utilized a two-stage sampling design.

In the first stage, 46 barangays were randomly selected from all the provinces in Mindanao using the probability proportionate to size (PPS) method.

Morales said that to increase the accuracy of the method their selection took into account both the level of the urbanization of the barangays and the income levels of the cities or municipalities. The barangays were first stratified from highly urban to most rural then the cities or municipalities were arranged by income level before the PPS method was applied

In the second stage, 25 qualified voters were selected by systematic random sampling from each of the 46 barangays.