JE C.C.
Robredo, currently behind the frontrunner Marcos in surveys, still has a fair chance to win the presidency if her numbers track the same trajectory as Binay did in opinion polls.
Opinion polls influence the election results for a celebrity-obsessed nation like the Philippines.
Filipinos [usually] go for the popular. Often, the ones leading the surveys and opinion polls. And they do win the elections.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo led the opinion polls from February to May of the 2004 election year. According to Social Weather Stations (SWS), she had 37% of the voting public, or 7% ahead of Fernando Poe Jr., her closest contender, a few days before the election.
Interestingly she won the presidency by a slim margin.
Noynoy Aquino’s lead in opinion polls–reflected in his overwhelming win in the 2010 national polls. Aquino kept his lead in surveys from December 2009 to May 2010.
He won the presidency by earning 42% of the votes, while ousted President Joseph Ejercito-Estrada managed 26%.
In 2016, Rodrigo Duterte improved his numbers in the SWS surveys from 21% in February to 33% in May 2010. Again, as expected, Duterte won the 2016 presidency after garnering 16.6 million votes, or 23% of the total votes cast.
In the upcoming election’s case, the son of the former President and infamous dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, is predicted to win the presidency by a wide margin. Latest figures from the Social Weather Station (SWS) reveal that 50% of Filipino voters may likely vote for the defeated 2016 Vice Presidentiable.
His closest competition is the incumbent Vice President Leni Robredo got 19%. Numbers based on the results of the opinion research polls conducted by the firm from January 28 to January 31, 2022, with 1,200 respondents as a sample size.
Marcos will win by a landslide if the election is today.
That’s what surveys suggest. That said, there are still 80 more days before the election, and based on opinion polls themselves, the most critical results are the ones that come out a few weeks or days before the election. Can Robredo magically snatch the lead from Marcos?
If we look at the 2010 Vice Presidential race results–there is a big chance.
Jejomar Binay won the vice-presidency in 2010. He defeated the opinion poll leader, Mar Roxas, who was the running mate of President Noynoy Aquino.
What’s interesting about Binay’s win? It is how his numbers improved throughout the months leading the election.
According to SWS’ first campaign-season survey, Binay had 16% of the voting public–that’s nearly 30% behind Roxas, who had 43% of the voters. By March of the same year, Binay got predicted to get 21% of the voters. Roxas barely moved at 42%.
By April, 25% already were inclined to vote for Binay, while 39% were inclined to go for Roxas.
The biggest movement happened during the few days leading to the election, with Binay already predicted to win the election by a very slim margin. According to the SWS survey conducted from May 2-3, Binay and Roxas are statistically tied, with Binay and Roxas getting 37.2% and 37% of the votes, respectively.
The results of political research surveys are regarded with high confidence when it comes to predicting results. While numbers generated by opinion polls don’t necessarily reflect the exact votes each candidate will get, it gives an idea of how strong a player, or how big advantages are, between front runners. It’s important to follow the movements of these numbers, because each rise or fall may actually dictate what future awaits to the Philippines. In the end, it’s really up to the Filipino people to stick to their principle and not get swayed by a candidate’s popularity into voting them.
