SWS: VP Binay, Poe, Roxas and Duterte in tight race for presidency

Vice President Jejomar Binay, Sen. Grace Poe,  administration standard bearer Manuel “Mar” Roxas II and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte are statistically tied as voters’ top picks to become the country’s next president based on the latest pre-election national survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

Results of the SWS presidential preference survey from December 12-14, which was first published by BusinessWorld, showed Poe and Binay are tied with 26 percent, followed by Roxas with 22 percent and Duterte with 20 percent.

While Binay and Poe got the highest scores in the survey, SWS director Leo Laroza said they are statistically tied with Roxas and Duterte for the top spot since the poll had a margin of error of ±3% for national percentages.

“Broadly, we consider all four of them as statistically tied [for the top spot] since the survey had a margin of error of ±3% Walang clear frontrunner sa survey na ito dahil napakalapit ng scores na nakuha ng apat na kandidato,” Laroza told GMA News Online in a phone interview Wednesday.

For a candidate to be considered as the frontrunner in the presidential race, Laroza said he or she must have a lead of at least 7 percent.

The results for the other presidential candidates were: Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago with 4 percent, Jose Rizalito "Lito" David with 0.1 percent, and Camilo Sabio with 0.04 percent.

The rest of the presidential aspirants—Elly Pamatong, Rep. Roy Señeres, and Augusto "Boboy" Syjuco Jr. got 0 percent.

The question asked for the Presidential preferences was, "Sa mga sumusunod na pangalan sa listahang ito, sino po ang malamang ninyong iboboto bilang PRESIDENTE ng Pilipinas, kung ang eleksyon ay gaganapin ngayon? [Among the names found in this list, who will you probably vote for as PRESIDENT of the Philippines, if elections were held today?].

The SWS survey used face-to-face interviews with 1,200 registered voters, 300 each in Metro Manila, Balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao (sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages, ±6% each for Metro Manila, Balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao). 

Among the national issues which took place when the SWS conducted its survey include the word war between Duterte and Roxas, the commemoration of the 11th death anniversary of Poe’s late adoptive father Fernando Poe Jr., and the onslaught of Typhoon Nona.

On Tuesday, Pulse Asia released its survey results on the 2016 presidentiables. It showed Binay regaining the top spot in the presidential race with 33 percent of the 1,800 respondents saying they will vote for him as president if the elections were held during the survey period of December 4 to 11 2015.

In second place were Duterte with 23 percent and Poe with 21 percent. They were closely followed by Roxas with 17 percent, and Santiago with 4 percent.

But in a phone interview with GMA News Online, Pulse Asia Research Director Ana Maria Tabunda said Poe and Roxas can be considered as in a tie.

“Considering the ± 2 percent error margin at the 95 percent confidence level, Poe and Roxas can be considered as tie pero hindi pwedeng sabihing tied din si Roxas sa second place kay Duterte dahil malayo na ang numero,” Tabunda noted.

With 21 percent, Poe’s preference ranges from 19 to 23 percent while that of Roxas' ranges from 15 to 19. “Nagmi-meet 'yung rating nila sa 19 percent kaya pwedeng tie sila,” Tabunda said. — LBG/RSJ, GMA News