Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. (davaotoday.com file photo by Medel V. Hernani)
DAVAO CITY — The camp of presidential aspirant Rodrigo Duterte said they are happy with the results of the survey which showed that the PDP-Laban bet has finally caught up with his rival Senator Grace Poe. But the group added that they are “working doubly hard” as the elections draw near.
In a survey commissioned by ABS-CBN and conducted by Pulse Asia, Duterte is now just a point behind Poe, with 25 percent and 26 percent respectively.
“Duterte is finally catching up with the poll leaders for the first time since the presidential campaign period started on February 9,” Duterte’s camp said on Tuesday, March 22.
The Davao mayor’s campaign manager, Leoncio Evasco Jr., said they are expecting to gain more points as they move towards the second half of the campaign, even after a Supreme Court (SC) decision that overturned a Commission on Elections decision to disqualify Poe.
The SC ruling that favored Poe to run for the president came out on March 8, while the survey was conducted from March 8-13 and had a sample of 4,000 registered voters.
Meanwhile, Vice President Jejomar Binay ranked third with 22%, while Liberal Party standard-bearer Manuel “Mar” Roxas II ranked fourth with 20%. Meanwhile, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago remained constant with 3%.
Evasco said they credit rise of Duterte’s ranking to “the clamor of the people for genuine change in the national leadership.”
“There is this growing groundswell of discontent among the people and they see in Duterte the strong leadership that the country has been wanting over the last decade,” he said. (davaotoday.com)
