Bam, Kiko's win in vote-rich, other areas cement Senate comeback

Former senators Paolo Benigno "Bam" Aquino IV and Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan were on the winners' circle in vote-rich cities and provinces and other areas resulting in their victory in Eleksyon 2025 and ensuring their Senate comeback.

Based on the results released by the National Board of Canvassers, Aquino received 20,971,899 votes putting him in second place while Pangilinan landed at fifth with 15,343,229 votes.

Renan Dalisay, campaign manager of Team Kiko, said their core base or supporters delivered but they consider as a bigger win their breaking through to non-base voters.

"Support expanded—not just from those who have long believed in Senator Kiko, but also from those who were not traditionally aligned with him. Our campaign message was clear: the fight for affordable food knows no political color, and neither do the solutions," he said in a message to GMA News Online.

Former Vice President Leni Robredo said the base of the Pink movement or their supporters since the 2022 elections delivered big for Kiko-Bam and even their allied party-list ML and Akbayan, but she also credited the two senatorial candidates for expanding their base.

Aquino ranked first in eight of the top 10 most vote rich provinces in the country namely Cavite, Bulacan, Pangasinan, Laguna, Negros Occidental, Batangas, Rizal, and Iloilo, as can be seen on the partial unofficial results from the Comelec media server.

He finished sixth in Cebu. In Pampanga, Aquino did not secure the top spot but ended up second.

Aquino also topped the Senate race in five out of 10 cities with the highest number of votes: Quezon City, Manila, Taguig, Pasig, and Antipolo.

He also ranked second in Caloocan and Valenzuela; fourth in Cebu City; and even placed eighth in Zamboanga City.

Pangilinan, for his part, made it to the Top 12 winners' circle in nine out of the top 10 provinces with the highest number of voters.

He placed fourth in Cavite, higher than Senator Ramon Bong Revilla Jr. who ranked fifth.

In addition, Pangilinan was second in Batangas and Iloilo; third in Laguna; fourth in Bulacan and Rizal; fifth in Negros Occidental and Pampanga; and 10th in Pangasinan.

Pangilinan also made it to the Top 12 winners' circle in eight of the 10 cities with the most number of registered voters.

He secured second place in Pasig; third spot in Quezon City, Manila, Caloocan, and Antipolo; fourth in Taguig and Valenzuela, just behind Valenzuela Representative Eric Martinez; and 11th in Cebu City.

The only top 10 vote-rich cities where Pangilinan lost were in Zamboanga City, where he ranked 13th, and Davao City, where Aquino also ended up way behind the Top 12.

Peter Cayton, an associate professor of Statistics at the University of the Philippines Diliman, said what the surveys missed was the period of May 6 to 12, given that the last preelection poll done by Social Weather Stations (SWS) came out on May 8, but it only covered May 2 to 6.

“The survey cannot anticipate what will happen during that period. A lot of things happened from May 6 to 12, and there are some outside endorsements that have happened that could have totally changed a lot of things. That is what happened to us, it is possible that we had a time sensitivity problem,” Cayton told reporters.

“This non-sampling error, the second kind of error in surveys, can happen because surveys are very time-sensitive,” he added.

Professor Danilo Arao, the lead convenor of poll watchdog Kontra Daya, shared Cayton’s take that surveys cannot cover everything and everyone, especially the five to six days before Election Day.

“It has something to do with the tightly contested nature of the Senate race. With the exception of the frontrunner, those from second to even probably 14th or 15th places would be well, for all intents and purposes, statistically tied against their closest competitor because the percentage difference is just very minuscule, very, very small. That's why anything can happen. We have to remember that the surveys were conducted a few weeks before the polls so anything can happen within the weeks after the survey was conducted,” Arao told GMA News Online.

From May 6 to 10, Aquino secured endorsements from incumbent officials in Lanao del Norte; Butuan; and San Pedro, Laguna; Jesus Is Lord Church, where incumbent Senator Joel Villanueva is a member; and Baguio Mayor Benjie Magalong who eventually won his reelection bid.

Aquino topped the Senate race in San Pedro, Laguna; placed 10th and 14th, respectively, in Butuan City and Lanao del Norte; and second in Baguio, just behind former senator Panfilo Lacson who is a former police official like Magalong,

During the same period of May 6 to 10, Pangilinan also scooped endorsements from Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia and Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte, on top of mounting a caravan in Ilocos Sur, La Union, Pangasinan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan, and Quezon City.

Pangilinan placed third place in Tarlac, the hometown of his late ally and former President Benigno Aquino III.

He made it to the Top 12 winners' circle in Cebu even though Garcia lost her reelection bid there.

In addition, Pangilinan also finished 12th in Ilocos Sur and almost made it to the top 12 in La Union where he settled for 13th place.

Are survey respondents voters?

Cayton, however, said polling firms, moving forward, should look into making more effort in ensuring that those answering the survey questions are the same people who will troop to the polling precincts to vote on Election Day.

“There’s a possibility that we need to adjust the representation of respondents. Traditional representation formulas of the surveys may have to be adjusted to really bring out the representation of the current voting population. Because there could be bias among those who frequently answer survey questions, those who are much older or more opinionated as against another segment,” he said.

He further said, in terms of internal checks, the poll firms might have to check the demographics of those that have voted versus those that have answered the survey and  if there is a significant gap, there could be an adjustment as to how the representation of different social classes, age groups are determined. 

"Because of this [survey response] being captured at a specific point in time...the interactions within the voting population, and well, within circles of friends, family, or relatives [are also there]...those could change the dynamics,” he added. —AOL, GMA Integrated News

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