4 leading presidential candidates in virtual tie
FOUR weeks into the campaign for the May 9 general elections, the country is locked in the most tightly fought presidential contest since 1992, when retired Gen. Fidel Ramos captured Malacañang with the narrowest margin of 23.58 percent of the vote, succeeding the extremely popular President Corazon Aquino, and ushering in a presidency without a majority mandate to govern after the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution.
The most recent survey, conducted by Pulse Asia from Feb. 15 to 20 and released on March 4, showed that four of the leading presidential candidates were running neck-and-neck, foreshadowing a reprise of the 1992 presidential election.
The four are trapped in a no man’s land, struggling to break out of the gridlock shown by the latest survey of voter preference and to establish a momentum in the final weeks before the May balloting in which none on the short list of presidential candidates has emerged as the red-hot favorite of the electorate.
In 1992, Ramos topped the record field of seven candidates and narrowly defeated populist candidate Miriam Defensor-Santiago of the People’s Reform Party.
Under the multiparty democracy established by the 1987 Constitution, Ramos topped a field of veteran politicians that also included Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), Ramon Mitra Jr. of Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, Imelda Marcos of Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, Jovito Salonga of the Liberal Party and Salvador Laurel of Nacionalista Party.
Ramos also got the lowest plurality in Philippine electoral history. In that election, Ramos was basking in the glow of a popular hero of the 1986 Edsa Revolution that toppled the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos.
Today, identification with Edsa I is no longer a defining issue in the May election. None of the five candidates contesting the presidency belongs to the post-Edsa leadership generation.
In the Pulse Asia survey, Sen. Grace Poe and Vice President Jejomar Binay are in a standoff for the lead.
Poe is favored by 26 percent of registered voter respondents, while Binay received 25 percent—a margin considered a tie, given the poll’s margin of error of plus-or-minus 2 percentage points.
Binay is also statistically tied with the Liberal Party’s standard-bearer, Mar Roxas, and the PDP-Laban’s presidential candidate, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, both with 21 percent. Santiago, who is contesting the presidency for the third time, is far behind with a voter support of 3 percent.
According to the Pulse Asia survey, none of the four leading candidates is gaining momentum ahead of the pack.
None of them has the basis to claim to be able to maintain the lead in the past few weeks, as the results show that the race is too close to call at this stage.
NPC endorsement
Rankings in popularity ratings are likely to shift, barring intervention of a fundamentally momentous event in the homestretch.
For example, Poe’s camp has claimed that the standoff with Binay for first place in the polls will not last long, as she will pull away following the recent endorsement of her presidential bid by the NPC, the second largest political party.
Poe’s spokesperson exuberantly claimed that the NPC’s more than 4,000 members across the country would serve as “surrogates” in bringing her message to voters.
This claim is based on nothing more solid than wishful thinking of a hypothetical shift of NPC members.
“Despite all the left-handed attacks against the person of Poe, the Filipino voters continue to stand behind her,” the spokesperson said.
Of greater concern to Poe is the fact that she is fighting in the Supreme Court two Commission on Elections decisions disqualifying her from the presidential contest because she is not a natural-born Filipino and that she does not meet the 10-year residency requirement for candidates.
The high court is expected to hand down a ruling in the next few days—a potential knockout punch to Poe’s candidacy that could reduce the election to a three-cornered race and radically change its alignments.
Tight race
Pulse Asia conducted the noncommissioned survey on Feb. 15-20, a week after the campaign started on Feb. 9. Poe’s latest score is 4 percent down from 30 percent, when she was the front-runner.
Preference for Binay moved by 2 points from 23 percent in January, while Roxas and Duterte—who were tied with 20 percent each last month—improved in standing by a point.
Pulse Asia president Ronald Holmes noted that, given the margin of error, Poe and Binay are statistically tied. Meanwhile, Binay is also in a statistical tie with Duterte and Roxas.
Holmes pointed out that “the campaign had just begun when we conducted the survey. It has led so far to retention of voter preference levels for candidates.” He noted that no candidate registered significant increases or declines.
“It is a pretty tight race,” he said, emphasizing that “Poe’s 7-point decline among Class D voters (the poor) is perhaps the only movement worth noting within areas and socioeconomic classes.”
