ADMINISTRATION standard bearer Manuel Roxas II made a commanding lead in a survey “for the first time” against the other presidential bets in this year’s elections, but his lead was about his being the candidate whom most of the voters did not like to win.
The mobile survey was conducted by Social Weather Stations for the broadcast company TV5.
Roxas’ camp questioned the methodology used in the mobile survey with 1,200 respondents, saying the result was not reflective of the true sentiments of the people.
The survey said 27 percent of the voters polled did not want Roxas to win, followed by Vice President Jejomar Binay at 24 percent and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte at 17 percent.
Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago followed at 10 percent while Senator Grace Poe was the “least preferred” by only 5 percent of the voters.
The remaining 17 percent of the respondents didn’t know whom they didn’t like best.
Another survey by Pulse Asia Research released on Monday said President Benigno Aquino III obtained a 52-percent approval rating from the respondents.
The survey was conducted in March and was about the performance and trust ratings of the government officials and key government institutions.
Meanwhile, administration standard bearers Roxas and Leni Robredo spent Sunday with the Filipino community in Hong Kong to hear their stories and to come up with appropriate programs for them.
They attended mass at St. John’s Cathedral and then proceeded to Statue Square.
SWS head Mahar Mangahas said that, in spite of the decreased response rate, “the demographic characteristics of the responses [in the survey] have been very stable.”
Roxas was disliked by most of the respondents in Metro Manila at 34 percent and Mindanao at 36 percent, while Binay led in the Visayas at 30 percent.
Roxas (25 percent), Binay (24 percent) and Duterte (22 percent) were the most disliked by the residents of Balance Luzon.
Rep. Barry Gutierrez, Roxas’ spokesman, compared the methodology of the mobile survey to the “comments section of Youtube,” saying the views didn’t reflect the sentiments of the people.
“It’s not random… You can see the big difference of this survey to other traditional survey forms on its unreliability,” Gutierrez told The Standard.
“Despite this, it’s still a tight and close race, and we will continue to bring the message of progress to all Filipino families. We will not be disheartened with these kind of surveys.”
The mobile survey, taken on March 30, used a random sample of 1,200 validated voters nationwide (300 each in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao). The sampling error margins of ±4 percent arrived at national percentages, ±7 percent in Metro Manila and the Visayas and ±8 percent in Balance Luzon and Mindanao.
Poe and Duterte were statistically tied for first in the mobile poll, with 34 percent choosing Poe and 31 percent choosing Duterte to succeed President Benigno Aquino III.
Binay and Roxas were chosen by 17 percent of those polled, while one percent chose Santiago.
Duterte gained five percentage points from the March 22 SWS mobile survey with Poe slipping a percentage point, while 18 percent chose Binay, 17 percent chose Roxas and two percent chose Santiago.
In a release, SWS confirmed that the respondents underwent face-to-face interviews on March 8 to 11 and were invited to participate in a mobile survey.
Of the total number, only 733 or 61 percent responded: 201 in Metro Manila, 170 in Balance Luzon, 193 in the Visayas and 169 in Mindanao.