Amid falling poll numbers for its standard bearer, presidential candidate Manuel Araneta Roxas II, the Liberal Party tried to regroup yesterday. Party top guns led by its titular head, President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III, were in full force at their Club Filipino reunion.
Based on videos from television and the photos taken by the BizNewsAsia photographer, I cannot readily say the Matuwid na Daan (Straight Path) party is in panic mode. The mood was gung-ho and buoyant. But I am sure above their brave faces, deep in their hearts, the LP stalwarts are demoralized and beleaguered.
The augury of an impending disastrous defeat is there. About 80 percent of Filipino voters do not want Matuwid na Daan. They do not want a BS Aquino III administration, Part II. They want to bury it six feet under the ground, along with its haughtiness, arrogance, self-righteousness, insensitivity, vindictiveness, incompetence and corruption. The recent five-hour blackout at the Naia Terminal 3 which Aquino’s cousin, the airport general manager, blamed on bad luck, and the massacre of farmers and soldiers in Mindanao (more cases of “malas” or bad luck?) should drive the last nail on the Yellow coffin of unlamented governance.
Six months ago, after Mar Roxas was anointed by his patron, BS Aquino, the name Duterte was unheard of in Metro Manila, the national capital, which has 12 million people, six million of them voters. Digong, “The Punisher,” was quite happy cursing and cannibalizing criminals in his native Davao, a city of 1.4 million in the Philippine south.
Today, Roxas is last, nationwide, among the four leading presidential candidates, languishing with 18 to 19 percent poll ratings. Duterte is first in the mind of voters in Metro Manila (32 percent), first among elite ABC (41 percent), and first among lower middle income D voters (31 percent), according to the Pulse Asia survey of March 29-April 3, 2016.
Considering that the mayor was ranged against two Manila-based rivals who were the previous frontrunners, Duterte’s poll numbers are astounding. Four of every 10 moneyed voters and three of every 10 Metro Manila and D voters prefer him over his better-known rivals. What began as a joke and charade became a serious and the leading contender.
In the Social Weather Stations survey of March 29-April 3, if elections were held early this month (April), only 18 out of every 100 voters would choose Mar Roxas, 59, No. 4 in a field of five presidential candidates. No. 1 would be the Davao City mayor of 22 years, Duterte, 71 with 27 percent. No. 2 would be former American girl turned Philippine politician Senator Grace Poe, 48, with 23 percent; and No. 4 would be long-time Makati mayor and Vice President Jejomar Binay, 74, with 20 percent. These are the ratios in the latest (March 30-April 2) survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS). Coming from 11 percent in the SWS survey of Sept. 2-5, 2015, Duterte’s voter support has tripled. In fact, in three months, his voters increased 3.45 times, from 11 percent to 38 percent by the time of the Nov. 26-28, 2015 SWS survey. It has plateaued today at less than 30 percent, still a magnificent showing.
Grace Poe was No. 1 in September 2015 with 26 percent and battled with Binay for leadership in the race until March 30, 2016 when she broke away with 34 percent. After the March 8 Supreme Court ruling allowing her to run for president (after concluding she is statistically a Filipino and her apparent lack of 10-year residency was “an honest mistake”), Senator Poe gained seven percentage points, from 27 percent in the March 4-7, 2016 SWS survey.
In the same March 30, 2015 SWS survey, Binay, with 17 percent, was dislodged by Duterte to secure second place, with 31 percent.
But then Poe’s “surge” turned into a slack. Her 23 percent today is even lower than her 26 percent on Sept. 2-5, 2015 when Duterte was languishing at 11 percent, less than half of her voter support.
Between September 2015 and this April, Duterte gained 16 percentage points or almost seven million votes. During the same period, Poe stagnated, gaining just 400,000 votes.
Is there still space for Duterte to grow? Yes. In Pulse Asia, the mayor already has 55 percent of Mindanao. A home region usually goes 85 percent for its local boy, as in the Solid North of Ferdinand Marcos, and up to 98 percent as in Bicol which elected four senators in one election.
Mindanao has more than 10 million voters. About 45 percent of that means 4.5 million votes, the number that are waiting to go-Duterte. The tough-talking, gun-ready, expletive-prone mayor already has 5.5 million of the votes from the Philippines’ second largest island. Still, he should be able to snatch at least two million more votes, since Mindanao is predominantly Cebuano, his spoken and native language.
Mar Roxas currently dominates in the Visayas with 34 percent while Duterte has only 25 percent, which is 2.5 times his previous 10 percent in the March 15-20, 2016 Pulse Asia survey.
Visayas is predominantly Cebuano and the Duterte clan comes from Cebu. Thus, Duterte should do as well as, if not better, than the Ilonggo Mar’s 34 percent. Visayas has a voter turnout of 11.31 million. Duterte should be able to gain at least a million Visayas votes in the next three weeks.
So two million more votes from Mindanao plus one million more from the Visayas is three million. Duterte currently leads Poe by 1.7 million votes—11.72 million vs. 10 million (per SWS). Duterte should be able to pad that lead to three million to eke out a convincing, if not a landslide, victory and silence his naysayers (not with a bullet though).
Conclusion: Duterte should give up Metro Manila and the Balance of Luzon to Poe and Binay. The victory votes are lying idle in the Visayas and Mindanao—both Duterte’s home regions. Cebuanos wake up. The Palace by the Pasig is yours to occupy.