Six years ago at this time, we were also being informed—or conditioned—who we were about to vote in the presidential election of 2010.
Pulse Asia would take its last pre-election survey on April 23-25 and show Senator Noynoy Aquino getting 39 percent of votes, far outperforming his closest rivals former President Erap Estrada and Senate President Manny Villar who were statistically tied at 20 percent.
The son of former Senator Ninoy and the recently deceased iconic former President Cory Aquino would eventually win the May 10 election by garnering 42 percent of the votes. President Erap would get 26 percent and Senator Villar, 15 percent.
In other words, the Pulse Asia survey was correct in predicting our next president in 2010.
In the vice presidential race, the same Pulse Asia survey would show Senator Mar Roxas obtaining 37 percent and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay far behind at 28 percent.
That was why many of us would not believe the Social Weather Stations survey that would be taken a week after, on May 2-3, because it showed the mayor already overtaking at 37.2 percent the former frontrunner’s 37 percent.
We were more surprised when the actual Comelec results would have the mayor winning the vice presidential race with a 41.6-percent share of the votes against the senator’s 39.5 percent.
We should learn and not take these surveys lightly.
The survey leader should never coast along especially if one of his pursuers is gaining momentum that could catapult him to the lead.
Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was one such pursuer in the March 14 SWS survey where he ranked fourth only at 21 percent. Senator Grace Poe led at 27 percent and Vice President Jojo Binay followed at 24 percent. Former Secretary Mar Roxas was even ahead of him at 22 percent.
Mayor Digong was, however, attracting more support from the low-income group in his provincial sorties and was not giving up.
Thus he said –
“I do not question survey companies. But you are not there until you are there. That has always been the rule in the elections. You are not there until you are there.”
Enigmatic, maybe, and typical of his straight-to-the- point statements, but they reflected nonetheless the attitude of a champion who would not quit.
His positive fighting attitude is now being rewarded. In the latest ABS-CBN survey that Pulse Asia conducted in April 5-10, he got 32 percent and led by seven percent Senator Grace Poe who was left behind at 25 percent. Vice President Binay and Secretary Roxas got 20 percent and 18 percent.
Mayor Digong could pull away from the pack if only he would continue to use simple and folksy messages to the voting population.
But he had been again careless in his words, and couldn’t resist blurting preposterous jokes for the sake of entertaining his audience.
Unfortunately, he did these in two occasions at the expense of others—playfully cursing last year Pope Francis for causing traffic jams and making a sexist statement last Saturday about an Australian missionary who had been raped and murdered by prisoners in 1989.
These were unnecessary remarks that had offended or at the least disappointed a lot of us.
Saying them in public were indeed big mistakes by a leading presidential candidate like him. Mayor Digong should have never made these remarks, not even in the private company of his most trusted and closest friends.
At the least, they required from him an admission of guilt and a public apology.
In fact, these are required, too, of any decent person who has committed these mistakes whether or not he is running for public office. Otherwise, he would have to be branded a bigot and a disrespectful and ill-mannered person.
When Mayor Digong made the required admission of guilt and public apology for his comments about the Australian—and promised a clean government despite his “dirty mouth”—his followers couldn’t help but pray that he would not repeat them.
Another similar incident may lead some to abandon him, as they did when he cursed the Pope. He lost the top place in the surveys thereafter, which he recovered only after months of hard campaigning.
As expected, many of the 68 percent of voters who are diehard supporters of his rival candidates are now pouncing on his latest faux pas. Even those who are still uncommitted are joining them as they conveniently advocate the rights of women and the abused. On Sunday’s scheduled presidential debate, we would also witness his rivals ganging up on him on this issue.
These would continue until election time.
But my senior citizen friends Fred, Tito and Albert would still stay by Mayor Digong’s side because his rivals would remain incompetent, corrupt and inexperienced no matter how many faux pas he makes.
For them, what they see is his decisive action in delivering instant justice to the Australian rape victim in 1989.
Expect therefore like in 2010 that the Pulse Asia’s latest survey results would again materialize into real election results on May 9.
