Former Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte are still the leading preferred picks for the presidential and vice presidential posts, respectively, results of the latest independent and non-commissioned Publicus Asia survey disclosed on Thursday, March 17.
This survey or Pahayag National Tracker 2 (PT2) is the second edition of the ongoing monthly survey series for the upcoming 2022 elections. The survey period ran from March 9 to March 14, 2022.
PT2 consisted of 1,500 respondents that were randomly drawn from a market research panel by the Singapore office of PureSpectrum, a US based firm, guided by statistics generated from official Commission on Elections (Comelec) data.
According to the pollster, Marcos Jr. retained his lead in PT2 with a preference share of 55.1 percent. They mentioned that this translated to an increase of close to 3 percent from his preference share of 52.3 percent in the PT1 conducted last February.
He was followed by Vice President Leni Robredo who remained in second place with a preference share of 21.0 percent. Publicus said that this is consistent with her numbers in February and in December of last year.
Manila Mayor Francisco "Isko" Moreno Domagoso was in third place with a preference share of 8.2 percent.
Duterte leads VP preferences
Duterte maintained her lead over the rest of the field in PT2 with a preference share of 56.5 percent, Publicus said.
Similar to her tandem partner Marcos Jr., she notched a 3 percent increase in March. Her latest figure is in line with her polling numbers in the previous two surveys of Publicus.
Senator Francis Kiko Pangilinan, Doctor Willie Ong, and Senate President Vicente Tito Sotto III are tied in second place with preference shares around the 11 percent mark. Publicus said that no significant shift in the structure of the overall ranking is discernible from the latest numbers.
"The numbers suggest that there are still no changes in the overall distribution of vice presidential preferences. SARA is still firmly above the 50 percent mark. The three tied at second place are still struggling to break past the 15 percent mark," the pollster said.