Pinoy VOTE

OPPOSITION LEADS SENATE RACE BY 9-3

Mahar Mangahas
Social Weather Stations

Opposition, in the sense of non-administration, candidates have a 9-3 lead over the administration's "Team Unity" (TU) coalition in the Senate race, according to the regular Social Weather Survey for the First Quarter of 2007, conducted over February 24-27, using the names of all 80 persons who filed candidacy.

The winning circle

The SWS survey front-runner is Francis Pangilinan (Liberal Party), chosen by 56% of registered voters - not part of TU, although his status with the coalition "Genuine Opposition" (GO) is unclear.

The next five candidates [Table 1] are all part of the GO: 2. Loren Legarda (Nationalist People's Party-GO), 54%; 3. Manuel Villar Jr. (Nacionalista Party), 52%, 4-5. Alan Peter Cayetano (Nacionalista Party) and Panfilo Lacson (United Opposition), 43%, and tied-6-7. Francis Escudero (Nationalist People's Party-GO), 37%.

Two TU members follow: tied-6-7. Ralph Recto (Lakas-CMD), 37%; and 8. Vicente Sotto III (Nationalist People's Party-TU), 31%. Recto's percentage is fractionally below Escudero's.

Next are three non-administration candidates: tied-9-10. John Osmeña (United Opposition) and Benigno Aquino III (Liberal Party), 30%; and 11. Gregorio Honasan (Independent), 29%.

The final slot is from TU: 12. Joker Arroyo (Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino), 28%.

Within bounds of statistical error are 13. TU-member Edgardo Angara (Laban.ng Demokratikong Pilipino), 27%, and 14. GO-member Aquilino L. Pimentel (Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino), 26%.

Thus the survey points to at least an 8-4, and at most a 10-2, score in favor of non-TU candidates as of the end of February. The term non-administration includes two, Pangilinan and Honasan, who are not counted within GO.

A significant distance away are: 15. Michael Defensor (TU), 16. Sonia Roco (GO), 17. Juan Miguel Zubiri (TU), 18-19. Cesar Montano (TU) and Richard Gomez (Ind.), 20. Vicente Magsaysay (TU), 21. Anna Dominique Coseteng (GO), 22-24. Prospero Pichay Jr. (TU), Antonio Trillanes (GO), and Teresa A. Oreta (TU), and 25. Luis Singson (TU).

Changes from 2006

In 2006, SWS did three surveys of the prospective 2007 senatorial race, but temporarily disclosed them only to political subscribers. Relevant portions are included in this report to show the trends compared to last year.

The result of the SWS November 2006 survey, using the present actual list of candidates, would have been 8-3 for the first 11 places, and a triple tie for 12th place among two candidates from the opposition and one from TU, i.e., a potential outcome of either 8-4 or 9-3, in favor of the opposition [Table 2].

The possibility of a 10-2 outcome as of February 2007 indicates a slight gain to the opposition over the last three months.
Individually, the gainers from November 2006 to February 2007 were: Pangilinan, who moved from third to first; Villar, from seventh to third; Cayetano, from tied for fifth to tied-fourth; Escudero, from tenth to tied-sixth; Osmeña and Aquino, both from tied-twelfth to tied-ninth; Arroyo, from tied-twelfth to solo twelfth; and Roco, from seventeenth to sixteenth. [These are not the ranks in Table 2, which are based on the lists of names used in the 2006 surveys, including those who ultimately did not file for candidacy.]

Pangilinan's position in first place in February 2007 is not a complete surprise, since he had already been in first place in June 2006.

Candidates who lost ground between November and February were: Legarda, who went from first to second; Lacson, from second to tied-fourth; Sotto, from fourth to eighth; Recto, from tied-fifth to tied-sixth; Honasan, from tied-eighth to eleventh; Pimentel, from tied-eighth to fourteenth; Angara, from eleventh to thirteenth; and Pichay, from eighteenth to twenty-second (due to the entry of fresh candidates Zubiri, Gomez, Montano, Magsaysay, and Coseteng).

Defensor ranked fifteenth in both November and February.

The November 2006 survey had three winning-circle candidates (not in Table 2) who ultimately did not join the senate race: J.V. Ejercito, tied for fourth; Korina Sanchez, tied for ninth; and Loi Estrada, tied for twelfth.

The high survey positions of Ejercito and Loi Estrada in November 2006 indicate that the electorate would have consented to having three members of the Estrada family sit in the Senate at the same time.

Survey background

The Social Weather Surveys of the Second, Third, and Fourth Quarters of 2006 were conducted over June 22-28, September 24-October 2, and November 24-28, respectively. The First Quarter 2007 Social Weather Survey was conducted over February 24-27, 2007.

The survey items on choice of candidates were not commissioned.

All Social Weather Surveys referred to in this release used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults divided into random samples of 300 each in Metro Manila, the Balance of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao (sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages). Area estimates were weighted by National Statistics Office medium-population projections for 2007 to obtain national estimates.

The registered voters in the February 2007 survey were 88% of the sample, and are the base of the percentages given in Table 1. Fourteen percent of the registered voters did not choose any candidate at all.

The percentages reported in Table 2 for the 2006 surveys are based on the full samples of adults, whether or not registered to vote. Figures for those who did not file candidacy have been omitted from Table 2.

The party identifications used here are as officially registered with the Commission on Elections, plus suffix GO or TU in cases where a party has candidates in both coalitions.

Forthcoming SWS Pre-Election Surveys exclude names of candidates formally de-listed by the Comelec.