In a scenario eerily similar to their battle for the vice-presidency in 2016, Leni Robredo overtook Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. in the latest survey and analysis of at least three credible organizations, two of them global.
A Manila Bulletin-sponsored survey using Facebook had Robredo with 47 percent of the vote, while Marcos Jr. had 44 percent.
One of the Philippines’ top three broadsheets – along with the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star — the Manila Bulletin reported the result with more than 1,000,000 participants.
The Bulletin had been conducting surveys on presidential preferences since late last year, and Marcos Jr. came out on top each time.
Robredo finally overtook Marcos Jr. in the survey conducted in the last week of January, this year. Results for February have not yet been released as of press time.
In their 2016 battle for the vice-presidency, Robredo was far behind Marcos Jr. at the start of the campaign period.
Around this time that year, she was fast catching up with Marcos Jr, eventually overtaking him by election day.
She eventually defeated him in a tight race, where her winning margin was less than 300,000 votes.
Marcos Jr. filed an election protest, which was eventually dismissed by the Supreme Court serving as electoral tribunal.
Meanwhile, Google Trends also had Robredo ahead in the “most searched” category with 38 percent, followed by Marcos at 28 percent.
Surprisingly, Isko Lopez was a strong third with 16 percent, followed by boxing legend Manny Pacquiao at 12 percent.
While Google Trends made it clear that the results could not be deemed as a survey, it did indicate the interest of the users of the world’s top social media platform.
A Google executive said the totals were just “aggregate search volume, and not necessarily predictive.” But marketing companies consider the numbers as a direction where a campaign is going.
More importantly, Google Trends predicted the recent winners of Philippine as well as US presidential elections, even when other pollsters predicted different results.
In 2016, for example, when Mar Roxas was seen as the probable winner, Google Trends said that Rodrigo Duterte would win by a mile, which he did.
In the US, Google Trends disagreed with some of the biggest polling firms that said Barack Obama would lose in his reelection bid to Mitt Romney in 2012, which was not the case.
The company also said Donald Trump would beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, when most pollsters gave the former first lady and secretary of state a huge chance of beating the real estate magnate.
Google Trends concluded that Robredo would beat Marcos Jr. based on its survey of the Philippines’ regions, where the son and namesake of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos only won in his home turf of the Ilocos region, aka the Solid North.
According to the Google Trend report for the period February 5 to March 2, 2022, Robredo scored 59 points to Marcos Jr’s 41 points in Metro Manila; 61 to 39 in Robredo’s favor in Calabarzon; 57 to 43 in Central Luzon; 56 to 44 in Central Visayas; 69 to 32 in Bicol; 56 to 44 in Central Visayas; and 53 to 47 in Davao, all in Robredo’s favor.
Marcos only won in his bailiwick by 52 to 48.
It can be noted that Robredo and her running mate Francisco Pangilinan have been drawing progressively bigger and bigger crowds to their rallies in the past few weeks.
Last week, a crowd estimated at 47,000 was present in Bacolod. Days before some 45,000 attended the Robredo rally in Bulacan, roughly the same number as her Cavite crowd a few days previously.
Political analysts say that the Robredo-Pangilinan tandem now has the momentum heading into the last two months before voting day.
However, as the president is elected separately from the vice-president, it is generally perceived that Sara Duterte-Carpio still leads over Pangilinan in the race for the second highest elective position in the land.
In Mindanao, the group known as the Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte—National Executive Coordinating Committee headed by former Agrarian Reform secretary John Castriciones that practically forced then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to run for president in 2016 has been actively campaigning for an Isko Moreno-Sara Duterte tandem.
Another pro-Rodrigo Duterte group headed by actress Vivian Velez also launched the RoSa, for Robredo-Sara team up at the historic Club Filipino last week.
