SENATOR Francis Escudero maintained a six-point lead over his closes rival in the vice presidential race, the latest The Standard Poll showed.
Escudero led with 30 percent, followed by Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (24 percent), Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo (20 percent), Senator Alan Cayetano (11 percent), Senator Antonio Trillanes IV (seven percent) and Senator Gringo Honasan (4 percent).
The nationwide survey of 3,000 respondents, conducted from Feb. 24 to March 1, showed that Cayetano lost the most in terms of voter support, dropping four percentage points from 15 percent in January.
Cayetano’s rating went down across all major geographic areas, but especially in the National Capital Region and Mindanao where his running mate, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, has been doing well in previous surveys.
Cayetano went down 10 percentage points in Metro Manila (from 17 percent in January to 7 percent in February) and five percentage points in Mindanao (from 24 percent to 19 percent) where Duterte’s rating went up 13 percentage points to 49 percent during the same survey period.
Retired admiral Reuben Lista, co-convenor of the Alyansang Duterte-Bongbong (AlDuB), said he does not attribute Cayetano’s declining rating to the AlDuB movement.
“All I can say is that AlDuB believes that Duterte and Marcos will be the best leaders this country will ever have as they are espousing what our people are yearning for—peace and order and moving forward as a nation through national unity,” Lista said in a phone interview.
Cayetano’s rating decreased across major regions in Mindanao except in Caraga where his rating rose five percentage points to 18 percent. His numbers went down in Zamboanga Peninsula (19 percent to 12 percent), Northern Mindanao (26 percent to 20 percent), Davao Region (38 percent to 31 percent), Cotabato Region (22 percent to 14 percent), and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (24 percent to 15 percent).
When asked for their top reasons for not voting for Cayetano, the survey respondents gave the following answers: they do not know Cayetano (17 percent), they have not heard of any project he was done (16 percent), he does not have enough experience in government (15 percent), and he is all talk and no action (13 percent).
Escudero and Marcos were tied in the top spot in NCR with 31 percent each. The two were statistically tied in Mindanao with Escudero getting 22 percent and Marcos, 21 percent.
Escudero led in South Luzon/Bicol (41 percent), Marcos took North/Central Luzon (43 percent) and Robredo retained her lead in the Visayas (33 percent).
Escudero remained the top choice among voters from both urban and rural areas with 33 percent and 27 percent, respectively.
Across economic classes, Marcos led in the upper and middle classes ABC with 32 percent while Escudero had a clear lead among Class D (30 percent) and Class E (30 percent) voters.
The survey had 3,000 respondents—all of whom are registered voters with biometrics and who said they are sure to vote in the May elections—from 79 provinces across the country, 40 highly urbanized cities and the 17 cities in the NCR.
