The spinmeisters and electoral planners of Malacanang are in a celebratory mood following the release of the latest Social Weather Stations’ dipstick on the ‘leading’ presidential hopefuls.
The survey was commissioned by revered Puerto Princesa mayor Edward Hagedorn who is well-respected on either side of the political divide in Philippine society.
Here’s the SWS chart for November and the survey firm’s news release first for proper appreciation:
SWS November 4-8, 2009 Survey:
Noynoy Aquino and Manny Villar top the people’s “three best leaders to succeed PGMA in 2010″
Social Weather Stations
As authorized by the sponsor, for the information of the public, Social Weather Stations is disclosing the results of an item on the Best Leaders to Succeed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2010 in the November 4-8, 2009 survey commissioned by Puerto Princesa City Mayor Edward Hagedorn.
The November 4-8, 2009 survey found Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III taking the top spot in the people’s three best leaders to succeed President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2010.
The question asked was: “Sa ilalim ng kasalukuyang Konstitusyon, ang termino ni Pang. Arroyo ay hanggang sa taong 2010 lamang at magkakaroon ng halalan para sa pagka-pangulo sa Mayo 2010. Sinu-sino sa palagay ninyo ang mga magagaling na lider na dapat pumalit kay Pang. Arroyo bilang Presidente? Maaari po kayong magbanggit ng hanggang tatlong sagot.”
[Under the present Constitution, the term of Pres. Arroyo is up to 2010 only, and there will be an election for a new President in May 2010. Who do you think are good leaders who should succeed Pres. Arroyo as President? You may give up to three names].
Fifty-nine percent named Sen. Aquino and 45% named Senator Manny Villar.
No list of names was provided to prompt the respondents.
Aquino and Villar were followed by Sen. Francis Escudero at 27%, and former Pres. Joseph Estrada at 18%.
he survey found then Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro mentioned by 8%, Sen. Loren Legarda by 4%, Sen. Mar Roxas by 3%, and Vice-President Noli de Castro by 3%.
Two percent gave an unspecified answer, “Aquino”.
At 1 percent each were Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, Brother Eddie Villanueva, and then MMDA Chairperson Bayani Fernando.
The question wording has been exactly the same in ten surveys since September 2007, with results shown in Table 1.
Survey background
The surveys of September and December 2007, March and June 2008, and February and November 2009 had sample sizes of 1,200 adults, for error margins of ±3%.
The surveys of September and December 2008, and June 2009 had sample sizes of 1,500 adults, for error margins of ±2.5%.
The September 2009 survey had a sample size of 1,800 adults, for an error margin of ±2.3%. The May 2009 survey had a sample size of 7,000 registered voters, for an error margin of ±1.2%.
All surveys were conducted using face-to-face interviews.
Except for May 2009 (commissioned by Ms. Avic Amarillo in behalf of Senator Manuel Villar, Jr.) and November 2009 (commissioned by Puerto Princesa City Mayor Edward Hagedorn), all the surveys cited in this release were non-commissioned; they were done on SWS’s own initiative as a public service, with first printing rights assigned to BusinessWorld.
All the findings from the earlier surveys have been previously released by SWS.
While oppositionist Senator Noynoy Aquino has maintained his impressive numbers, the gains registered by Senator Manny Villar and Lakas-Kampi-CMD combine standard bearer Gilbert ‘Gibo’Teodoro cannot be ignored.
One of this writer’s Palace sources notes: “Nonoy’s lead is obviously being eaten up now by both Secretary Teodoro and Sen. Villar.”
“The Liberal Party should not lull itself into thinking they have 2020 all sewn up,” my source noted adding,” even while Villar is supposedly ‘in the opposition’ he is really an ideological ally of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.”
Another source with links to Malacanang also told At Midfield: “our coalition remains solidly behind the efforts of Secretary Teodoro but a Villar presidency will not disappoint us.”
Coffee shop habitués have long been describing Sen. Villar as “a virtual clone of GMA as far as his announced positions on the economy are and his approach toward addressing poverty.”
The coffee shop pundits also note how Villar “has really shied away from criticizing GMA along with voiding participation in recent political forums where questions have focused on the likelihood of Mrs. Arroyo being hounded by corruption charges after she leaves office on June 30, 2010.”
“Even as we cheer the improved ratings of Secretary Teodoro, the truth is only Mr. Villar is within striking distance of Noynoy Aquino,” my Palace source said.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Ding, based on what i’ve seen based on BlogWatch interview with Villar… the phrase “ideological ally of gma” is the right way to describe him.
can you define what is the particular ideology?
ideology of ‘short cut’, to subdivisions…or to presidency.
Meron na akong nakikita uma-atras na kay NoyNoy. Doon nga sa EllenTordesillas, may makikita ka. A few are leaving NoyNoy when they realize that Mister EVAT-Recto is an ideological ally of NoyNoy.
Yes Coy.
My source actually used ‘clone’ alternatively, albeit jokingly.
LOL.
Ang galing ni Gibo!
He has been registering 100% increases!
This is clearly a trend for Gibo!
At this rate, during the elections, we can expect Gibo to gain more votes than there are voters!
I dont believe in surveys. Especially Phillipine surveys. I urge
people to examine carefully: the agendas, the programs and the
platforms of all candidates.
We will discuss them meticulously.
Is it because you doubt Filipinos can carry a scientifically valid survey? Or surveys in general (even if the backbone of the Information Age is driven by statistics?)
SWS and Pulse Asia have been quite ok so far. One or two false positives during the last senatorial elections but they’ve hit the spot more often than not.
The Centre of course is another story. That crap PR firm masquerading as a ‘survey’ body is the utter shits.
I doubt the integrity of the data. And the integrity of the people conducting the survey. What pattern of sampling did they use? It did not reflect any. It just mentioned who are in, who are out. Who are on top, who are below.
The last time I had seen the survey. Noli de Castro was on top. He was not even a candidate. The fellow did not even move his eyeballs to show he was in the race. And he was on top?
While the others, moving heaven and earth to show they are in
the race. They were in far distant. It is like the way COMELEC
is accredidating candidates to be inclused in their list.
Gibo is the most confident. He can represent our country way better than Noynoy. Noynoy is for wowowee..
If people will vote for Noynoy, this country will move like a worm.
I dont endorse any Candidate. Decide on you own…
hahaha.. it’s a test hyden..happy holidays to you
This tiem I agree with you Leytenean….Finally ypu ar egetting better
I shall root for JC de Los Reyes, the young idealist who have more substance that all the presidentiables combined though he is lacking in logistics.
On the question of whether his faith would matter in the discharge of governmental function (dichotomy of separation of state and church principle), he said that it woud be a hypocrisy if he would speak about christian values in private life and leave it behind when he was already discharging a government function. Integrity and honesty which is the bedrock of his faith should be filtered to the business of government.
Other politicians on the same question answered with the trite and dull, “the state is a separate institution from the Church and the latter should not meddle with its affair”. Its an empty platitude that is typical of the trapos.
“than all the presidentiables” not that all, my bad. :)
The trapos were trying to enlist the support of those who wanted “abortion pills” of which the Church was livid about and therefore would gingerly approach the subject from the “separation of church and state” ek ek!! and they did not even appear spontaneous and sincere about it.
But in the case of JC de los Reyes, oh boy, he was so sincere about it that you could notice the lump in his throat as verbalize his thought.
as he verbalizes his thought.. my bad again!
JC de los Reyes in an imbecile.
On the question of overpopulation his answer began “Maraming lupa sa Pilipinas…..”
He’s a moron. Perlas should have made the grade rather than that religious nutter nuisance JC de los Reyes.
But then again, thank Jehovallah he’s a hopeless case.
Don’t you think it funny, or probably astute, that after the forum at UST, the predominantly intelligent and Christian audience rated Delos Reyes a zero on credibility?
Dean
At ground level, no validation by an individual or group has yet been initiated to at least check and review whether or not the sampling method used by SWS or any other polling circuit for that matter could be held to be accurate, valid and reliable.
For instance, I would have been interested to know where the respondents come from, who are they, how they were selected and more espcially so on whether each person within a particular class or location has been given equal opportunity to be interviewed face-to-face.
I would undertake to do one such research perhaps at least once in the future since I have serious doubts on the results of this latest survey – offhand.
From where I stand, it reflects nothing. Why?
As we all can see, these names are already inappropriate to be included in the pack as they reflect clear and present unreality, unthinking even. Such names as Mar Roxas, Francis Escudero, BF, Loren Legarda, Panfilo Lacsan, and Jejomar Binay should logically be in the exlusion list already since the whole universe of respondents ought to know that they are all not anymore vying for the presidency.
And the pretention of having to assign values to an “Aquino” as if the same could not have refered to Noynoy unless of course we would infer that the ‘Aquino’ value in this case actually still refers to a Cory who is already deceased.
The non-exclusion of Dick Gordon is very revealing as well. Well these results to my mind do not cut across the grain. It makes me doubt whether indeed, some polling circuits are just doing us a disservice.
If anybody would give me the complete set of materials for this particular study, I would gladly want to come up with a critique on the same as a term paper in my public administration course.
Yes. Ideological allies as in Bonnie and Clyde.
Dean
Frick and Frack.
I see Perlas was given the boot by COMELEC. Evidently he did not have enough money to prove he was serious. That he presented the only action-oriented platform was irrelevant.
So instead of primaries, we have the wisdom of the elders . . .
such as it is.
Joe
the survey shows that noynoy came on top only because of his “sudden” popularity; which, to my assessment, clearly means that he is not prepared.
as for the villar-gma theory, well, this confirms previous rumors of the admin supporting villar in the end.
I share Hayden Toro’s skepticism about surveys. We are given no details of how good a representative of the total voting population in the country the sample is. Is it a true cross-section of all the voters? How many came from the A, B, C, D, etc. crowd? How many came from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao? And I mean bona fide residents in these islands, not migrants from these islands now residing in Manila. Unless they can present evidence that their sample is an accurate representation of the voting population, the integrity of the results is questionable, no matter that their margin of error is only 1%.
Let there be a validating circuit, an academic institution like UP or Ateneo, to conclude whether or not these surveys periodically released by SWS as well as Pulse Asia which tend to set the trend or condition the minds of the voting public to vote for a ‘deceivingly’ winnable candidate are – scientific, defensible and a true reflection of the respondents’sentiment or opinion.
Absent this, these surveys are deemed passe – mere scrap of paper.
im from davao city, im taking my own survey, and yes noynoy is the choice of the davaenos, especially now that we know that villar is an ally of gma. our reason why we choose noynoy is that the legacy of the parents and we know that they are honest…