Former President Rodrigo Duterte was the top choice of majority Filipinos if the senatorial elections were held today and he was a candidate, a PUBLiCUS Asia survey released yesterday showed.
Duterte ranked first among possible senatorial candidates with 47 percent voter support, based on the “Pahayag 2023 Third Quarter Survey.”
The survey was conducted from September 7 to September 12 among 1,500 respondents.
This was just a slight drop from his 51 percent voter preference in the survey conducted in the previous quarter.
Tied at second place were Dr. Willie Ong and ACT-CIS party-List Rep. Erwin Tulfo with a support base of 43 percent each.
At the third and four spots were incumbent senators Christopher Go and Imee Marcos, who garnered 38 percent and 36 percent voter support, respectively.
Rounding up the top 12 were Senator Ronald dela Rosa with 36 percent, former Senator Panfilo Lacson with 34 percent, former Senate President Vicente Sotto III with 33 percent, former Manila mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso with 32 percent, former vice president Leni Robredo with 28 percent, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. with 35 percent, and Senator Pia Cayetano with 25 percent.
“It is important to note that during this period, voting disposition for senatorial candidates is not necessarily correlated with recognition / awareness or trust, as there are uncorrelated movements for some candidates,” PUBLiCUS Asia said.
“Notably, there has been a significant change of heart among voters in the National Capital Region (NCR) compared to the previous quarter, which is worth monitoring,” it added.
Survey respondents were chosen at random from a market research panel of more than 200,000 Filipinos.
The respondents were dispersed across five geographical areas, namely NCR, North Central Luzon, South Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.