Will Mr. Roxas run?

PHILIPPINES - In Brief 18 Jun 2015 by Romeo Bernardo

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In past weeks, a number of aspiring Presidential candidates have visibly stepped up their game in apparent efforts to influence survey numbers. Today, one of the leading pollsters, Pulse Asia, released the results of its much-awaited June 2015 survey showing very interesting results to the question “Of the people in this list, whom would you vote for as President of the Philippines if the 2016 elections were held today and they were the candidates?” For the first time, Senator Grace Poe overtook Vice President Jejomar Binay who has heretofore held the top spot in presidential preference surveys. Senator Poe’s percentage backing rose impressively to 30% from 14% in March. In contrast, that of VP Binay dropped to 22% from 29%. Senator Poe has remained non-committal about her plans to join the presidential derby while VP Binay, who very early on threw his hat in the ring, has for months now been at the receiving end of investigations into allegations of past corruption. While media attention has understandably initially zoomed in on the top spot, we are eyeing more keenly Interior Secretary Mar Roxas’s 10% voter preference, an improvement from 4% in March. The question as we see it is, will this 10% be enough to give Secretary Roxas, President Aquino’s presumptive anointed, and his supporters hope? At the moment, we are still giving a more than even chance of Secretary Roxas running. If so, we think that his best chances for a successful campaign against VP Binay is if he succeeds in persuading Senator Poe to run as his vice-president. Based on the latest poll, Senator Poe looks like a shoo-in for the vice presidency, topping the survey with a 41% vice-presidential voter ...