Press Release
December 8, 2008

The Center survey on presidentiables
De Castro, Villar in first-place tussle

Nacionalista Party President Manny Villar and Vice President Noli de Castro are tied for first place in a survey on possible contenders in the 2010 presidential elections.

In a survey by the Center and Data Advisors, Inc. conducted on November 12-20, 2008, Villar got 16 percent to share the first place with de Castro, who also got 16 percent.

Villar's rating went up by three points from the 13 percent he got in a similar survey conducted by the Center last June while de Castro's rating decreased by two points from his previous 18 percent.

The frontrunners were followed by Sen. Loren Legarda (14 %), former Pres. Joseph Estrada (13 %), Sen. Francis Escudero (12%), Sen. Panfilo Lacson (8 %), Sen. Mar Roxas (8 %), and MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando (5 %).

Compared to the survey conducted last June, Escudero's rating decreased by four points from his previous rating of 16 percent, while Legarda went up by one point. Fernando's rating also went up by 3 percent and Lacson, by 6 percent.

Estrada and Roxas' ratings did not change.

"Despite the highly-publicized expose of Sen. Lacson on the issue of double insertion in the proposed 2009 General Appropriations Act and his campaign to portray former Senate President Villar as someone who benefited from the double insertion seem to have been largely ignored by the Filipino public as the nationwide poll sampling of the Center did not show any evidence that the issue raised by Senator Lacson has affected the way Senator Villar is perceived by the public," the study said.

The survey showed that 44 percent of the 1,500 respondents believe that Villar did not benefit from the C-5 road extension project, which is expected to decongest traffic in the South of Metro Manila.

The survey also showed that Filipinos appreciate Villar's program in providing assistance for the repatriation of overseas Filipino workers in distress.

It can be recalled that the latest Social Weather Stations survey for presidentiables done in September showed that De Castro (29%) only has a one percent lead over Villar (28%), while Legarda is in third place with 26 percent. Villar's rating also improved by three percent from his June rating of 25%.

Villar's rating also jumped five points in the October survey of Pulse Asia where he got 17 percent from his former 12 percent. In this survey, Villar is placed in second with Estrada, while de Castro has 18 percent from his previous 22 percent.

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