After thousands flocked the PasigLaban grand rally of Vice President Leni Robredo, University of the Philippines Professor Jorge Tigno said supporters of Robredo are "more diverse and inclusive."
In an interview over One News' The Big Story, Tigno said both the camps of Robredo and former Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. have shown "high degree" of grassroots support.
"In the case of Robredo campaign rally, they seem to offer dedicated and highly voluntary participants with people who come not only with themselves but those bringing in their family, friends with them, but also their ideas. They bring with themselves placards, posters, shirts, and even resources like free food and they basically offer a more positive and festive vibe about the promise of collective action," Tigno said.
"If you look more closely in Robredo rallies, they are actually more granular, more grainy, more diverse, and inclusive... I don't see that level of diversity in Marcos rallies at this point," he added.
Meanwhile, Tigno said participants in Marcos rally appear to be "rehearsed, artificial, and lacking in diversity."
"Their unity slogan appears to be consistent with this," he added.
However, Tigno noted that big crowds do not automatically translate to voter preference.
"As we see in the case of Robredo again, we're seeing bigger and bigger crowds supporting her and her candidacy, but I think it's important for us to understand that these crowds don't automatically translate to preferences right away," he added.
"Because if you look at the sizes of the crowd, they betray some kind of a sense of plurality, diversity. People who go there are probably decided and determined to vote for their candidate or they may be brought there by their family and friends."
Tigno added that "he is not convinced" that having big rallies would also have big numbers in the survey right away.
"I would rather wait for the surveys actually to come out and then see from there," he concluded.