Bam maintains ranking in latest poll survey

MANILA, Philippines - The President’s cousin, senatorial candidate Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV, remains in the winning circle in the latest pre-election survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

Aquino has maintained his number 10 ranking and obtained 42 percent in the survey conducted from March 15 to 17, which used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults.

He also ranked ninth to 10th places in the February 2013 survey of SWS and obtained 42 percent of intended votes.

Aquino, former chairman of the National Youth Commission, is also the only senatorial candidate from Team PNoy endorsed recently by boxing champ and Sarangani Rep. Manny Pacquiao.

Meanwhile, re-electionist Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Loren Legarda were in a statistical tie for the number one spot in the survey.

Cayetano obtained 57 percent, practically tied with the 59 percent score of consistent survey leader Legarda because of the +/- 3 margin of error.

Cayetano, who is also from Team PNoy, rarely joins the sorties and rallies of the party. He conducts his own campaign, which he said is primarily a “listening tour” based on his PTK or presyo, trabaho, kita (prices, employment, wages) platform.

“The best thing that I have gotten out of this listening tour is that I have personally heard from the people not only their problems but also their proposed solutions. Together, we can address all these issues regarding high prices, lack of jobs, and low income comprehensively,” Cayetano said.

Another Team PNoy bet, former Las Piñas City Rep. Cynthia Villar, has also been performing well in the surveys, ranking fifth to seventh in the latest SWS poll.

Villar welcomed the survey result as a vote of confidence by the people on her candidacy.

“These encouraging results will fuel me to help Filipinos even more. As the campaign period progresses, I would like to reach out to more people – not only geographically, but also across all sectors of society,” Villar said.

Sen. Francis Escudero, however, fell from second to third and fourth spots, in a statistical tie with United Nationalist Alliance senatorial bet JV Ejercito.

In a text message to reporters, Escudero said the result “is a wake-up call to step up our campaign and work more than usual.”

“Surveys can be a benchmark to determine whether what we are doing is okay or we need to step up,” he said in Filipino.

Escudero admitted he is having a challenging time due to controversy over his eight-month relationship with actress Heart Evangelista. But the lawmaker said he separates his personal life from his public life.

Meanwhile, re-electionist Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, who is also from Team PNoy, ranked 8th and got 44 percent in the SWS poll.

But Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara, who placed 12th in the survey, admitted that the battle for the last few spots is very tight and he needs to work harder to stay in the winning circle.

Former senator Ramon Magsaysay Jr., who catapulted from a steady 16th place in the surveys to number 13 in the latest SWS poll, said that the result only encourages him to reach out to more people during the second half of the campaign.

“This latest survey gives us a renewed sense of optimism and hope that we can finally land in the winning circle. The survey shows that we are slowly but surely catching up with the Magic 12,” Magsaysay said.

Team PNoy spokesman Marikina City Rep. Romero Quimbo said that the continued dominance of the administration party in the surveys “validates that (their) message-oriented campaign is making better headway with the electorate than the personality-oriented and negative attack campaign being waged by UNA (United Nationalist Alliance).”

“The strong showing of Team PNoy candidates is reflective of the public finally seeing the clear connection between our individual candidates to the daang matuwid (straight path) record of the President,” Quimbo added.

Results of the latest SWS pre-election survey were reported by radio dzRH on Monday and published by BusinessWorld yesterday.