DAVAO City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte topped the May 2016 presidential race in the latest ABS-CBN Pre-Electoral National Survey conducted by Pulse Asia Research Inc., the pollster revealed on Tuesday.
Senator Grace Poe led in second-choice voter preference, Pulse Asia also said.
If the May 2016 elections were held during the survey period, 30 percent of the registered voters would elect Duterte as the country’s next president.
Duterte again vowed to go after the drug lords if elected.
“I will run after the big fish. I will order the police and the military to run after the drug lords,” he said Monday night during a campaign sortie in Taguig City.
“I am just an ordinary person, but my God nobody can question my love of country.”
Poe was relegated to second place (25 percent) while Vice President Jejomar Binay and former Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II found themselves statistically tied for third place (20 percent and 19 percent, respectively).
Only 2 percent of the registered voters chose to support Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s presidential bid.
The rest (4 percent) did not support any candidate, refused to name their preferred presidential bets or were still undecided.
Based on a multi-stage probability sample of 4,000 registered voters 18 years old and above, with biometrics, Pulse Asia Research’s nationwide survey had a ± 1.5 percent error margin at the 95 percent confidence level.
The subnational estimates for the geographic areas covered in the survey had the following error margins at the 95 percent confidence level: ± 4.6 percent for Metro Manila, ± 2.3 percent for the rest of Luzon and ± 3.4 percent for the Visayas and ± 3.3 percent for Mindanao.
In keeping with Pulse Asia’s academic nature, no religious, political, economic, or partisan group influenced any of these processes.
The survey was commissioned by ABS-CBN Corp.
As expected, most voters in Mindanao (55 percent) backed the candidacy of Duterte.
Duterte was also the top choice for president of those in the Class ABC (41 percent) and Class D (31 percent).
Meanwhile, Poe had the lead in the rest of Luzon (31 percent) while Roxas was the top pick in the Visayas (34 percent).
Among Metro Manilans, the leading candidates were Duterte (32 percent) and Poe (30 percent) while in Class E, three candidates shared the top spot: Poe (29 percent), Duterte (26 percent) and Binay (23 percent).
The Filipinos’ leading alternative candidate for president was Poe (31 percent). She also enjoyed the lead in the rest of Luzon (32 percent), the Visayas (31 percent), Mindanao (31 percent), Class ABC (33 percent) and Class D (31 percent).
In Metro Manila, Poe (26 percent) and Binay (21 percent) were the leading second choices for president. The same observation held true in Class E (28 percent and 25 percent, respectively).
At the national level, Binay registered the second highest second-choice voter preference (19 percent). He was followed by Duterte (15 percent), Roxas (13 percent) and Santiago (5 percent).
Almost two out of every 10 registered voters with a first choice for president (17 percent) did not have an alternative candidate for the post, were ambivalent on the matter or refused to identify their second choice for the post.