With administration standard bearer Manuel Roxas II still trailing behind other presidential candidates in recent surveys, President Benigno Aquino III expressed confidence that Filipino voters will eventually vote for his anointed candidate who will continue his “daang matuwid” policy.
“I have every confidence in my countrymen, and I know they will not let our efforts go to waste. Come May, the Filipino people will choose my successor, displaying the same commitment to positive transformation that they have shown over the past five-and-a-half years,” the President said during the New Year’s Vin d’Honneur at the Palace on Thursday.
“The straight path will open farther and wider well into the horizon of our nation’s future,” Aquino added.
The President has said that the 2016 elections will be a referendum on his administration.
“Did we do right things or wrong things? If we did the right things, then our chosen successor will be elected,” he said in an interview in September.
“If we were wrong, the people can fire us. It’s their right,” he added.
In the December The Standard Poll, 13 percent of the respondents said they will not vote for the candidate who will be endorsed by the President.
It was the highest percentage of negative vote among the top six possible political endorsers.
Seven percent of the respondents said they will not vote for candidates endorsed by their barangay chairman, mayor and governor. Nine percent said they will junk bets endorsed by their congressman while 10 percent said they will not support candidates anointed by their religious leaders.
The survey, conducted by resident pollster Junie Laylo from December 4 to 12, had 1,500 respondents – all of whom are registered voters with biometrics and are sure to vote in the May 9 elections – from 76 provinces across the country and the 17 cities in the National Capital Region.
