Tight fight for Aquino and Villar

Tight fight for Aquino and Villar

With three months to go before the May 2010 elections, voters are choosing between Senators Noynoy Aquino and Manny Villar for the presidential post, a Pulse Asia January 2010 nationwide pre-elections survey showed.


The survey said that 37 percent of the respondents would vote for Aquino, while 35 percent said they would choose Villar.

With only a two-percent difference, Aquino and Villar are the clear frontrunners in the coming elections, the survey said.

Estrada, on the other hand, is trailing at 12 percent, followed by former Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro at five percent.

Six percent of the respondents were undecided, the survey showed.

Villar's ranking improved by 12 percent compared to Pulse Asia's December 2009 survey. Aquino and Estrada both saw their ranking decline by eight percent from one month ago.

Majority of those who would vote for Aquino were from NCR. They come from all classes -- A, B, C and D, with the Senator most popular among Class D and among the elderly.

Villar, on the other hand, is nearly as popular as Aquino in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, but he is more popular among the 25 to 34 age group.

Meanwhile, Senator Manuel Roxas III leads the vice-presidential pre-election survey, with 47 percent of the respondent saying they would vote for him.

He is also the obvious favorite among classes A, B, C and D, and across all age groups.

Senator Loren Legarda is a far second, getting 28 percent, followed by Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay at 13 percent.

The other vice-presidential candidates trail with about two percent.

The survey also found that seven percent of the voters were undecided about who to choose among the vice-presidentiables.

The survey was conducted during the period when the following events were on-going: there was clamor for aid for Haiti, the impending retirement of Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno and AFP Chief of Staff Victor Ibrado, the report of the Senate Committee of the Whole seeking censure of Sen. Villar over the C-5 extension project, and Comelec's decision to approve the candidacies of Pres. Arroyo and former Pres. Joseph Estrada in the May 2010 elections.