Pulse Asia Survey: Top 2013 Senatorial Candidates

The latest survey conducted by Pulse Asia from February 26 to March 9, 2012 revealed the frontrunners in the 2013 Philippine Senatorial elections.

Image Courtesy of Pulse Asia

1. Loren Legarda – 58.5%
2. Francis “Chiz” Escudero – 52.7%
3. Mar Roxas – 41.8%
4. Alan Peter Cayetano 41.6%
5. Juan Ponce Enrile Jr. – 38.2%
6. Noli de Castro – 34.6%
7. Antonio Trillanes IV – 33.7%
8. Gregorio Honasan – 32.1%
9. Jose Victor Ejercito – 31.3%
10. Koko Pimentel – 29%
11. Ted Failon – 26.9%
12. Leila de Lima – 26.6%
13. Rodolfo Biazon – 22.5%
14. Juan Miguel Zubiri – 22.4%
15. Ana “Jamby” Madrigal – 21.8%
16. Michael Defensor – 21.5%
17. Kris Aquino – 20.7%
18. Richard Gordon – 20.3%
19. Willie Revillame – 20.2%
20. Juan Edgardo Angara – 18.1%
21. Sharon Cuneta – 17.0%
22. Grace Poe – 12.7%
23. Gilbert Teodoro – 11.8%
24. Mike Enriquez – 11.0%
25. Richard Gomez – 10.8%
26. Eduardo Manzano – 8.9%

Pulse Asia used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 representative adults 18 years old and above.

Voters remind Loren to follow the queue

Some registered voters in Malabon got irritated when Nacionalista Party (NP) vice-presidential guest candidate Loren Legarda went ahead of the queue at the precinct when polls opened on Monday.

Some supporters in Potrero, Malabon cheered "Loren, Loren, Loren" when she arrived, while other voters reminded Legarda that she should fall in line.

"Ma'am, pila po kayo," some voters said.

"Ay pila ba to, ay sorry ha? Gusto nyo akong pumila, balik ako sa pila? Sobrang bagal ba?" replied Legarda.

Despite the appeal of those who were in line, Legarda still proceeded to vote ahead of them.

Meanwhile, Liberal Party presidential candidate Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino II chose to fall in line in his designated polling precinct in Tarlac.

As of posting time, Aquino was still waiting to cast his vote since the PCOS machine deployed in his precinct malfunctioned.

Aquino said that they were informed that 2 hours since his precinct opened, only 100 people had been able to cast their votes.

He said they were told that there was no spare PCOS machine, and voters have to wait for a Smartmatic-TIM technician to fix the problem before they can actually vote.

Due to the automated election system, the Commission on Elections clustered 5 to 7 precincts into one. As a result of having more voters per precinct, the poll body prolonged voting hours from 7 am to 3 pm to 7 am to 6 pm.

Under the manual system, there were 300,000 precincts; now, there are 76,347 precincts. The number of registered voters, meanwhile, rose from around 45 million to an all-time high of 50 million.

Loren Legarda’s loyalty questioned

-Senator Loren Legarda has been criticized by an official of the Liberal Party (LP) for her persistent claim of loyalty to the Filipino people when what she has shown was her “penchant for butterfly-ism.”

“Butterfly-ism” is the word being used by some people to describe a politician, who always jumps from one party to another.

LP director-general Chito Gascon said that if there was truth to Legarda’s claim that she feels sincerely for the people, then “she should be the epitome of loyalty to the people, instead of her personal political interests as shown by her butterfly attitude.”

“She has shown nothing but her penchant for political butterfly-ism,” Gascon said in a statement on Sunday.

He then noted how Legarda had joined and left political parties and alliances and even reversed her own stand on major issues to advance her political ambitions.

Legarda first ran as a senator under the banner of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats during the 1998 elections and supported the impeachment of then President Joseph Estrada.

But in 2004, the senator ran and lost for vice president as the running mate of Estrada’s close friend, the late Fernando Poe Jr.

Legarda is again running for vice president, this time, however with Nacionalista Party’s standard-bearer, Senator Manny Villar.

“How can she support a presidential candidate she has condemned before and worked to remove as Senate President because of his involvement in the C-5 road anomaly?” Gascon asked.

Legarda was among the senators who ousted Villar from the Senate presidency and later on pushed for the Senate investigation into his alleged involvement in the anomalous C-5 road extension project.

“How can she justify political butterfly-ism? Just because it is convenient for her so she can pursue her political dreams outside her own political party? Is this the true EDSA warrior, or a politician just using EDSA to ride on the popular tide of emotion spawned by people's remembrance of the grand people's action that threw out dictatorship and corruption?” Gascon further asked.

Loren Legarda

Lorna Regina Bautista Legarda, better known as Loren Legarda, is a Filipino broadcast journalist and politician. In the 2004 Philippines general election, Loren Legarda ran for the position of Vice-President as the running mate of Fernando Poe, Jr. As of 2007, Loren Legarda is serving her second term as an incumbent senator in the Philippines. As a journalist, Loren Legarda had received the national honor of the Ten Outstanding Young Men and Women (TOYM) award and for her humanitarian and environmental work she was named one of the Global Leaders for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and a United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) laureate included in the Global 500 Roll of Honour in 2001. In 2004, she became an Environment Awardee of the Priyadarshni Academy in Mumbai, India.

In 2008 Loren Legarda was appointed as UNISDR Asia Pacific Regional Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation. Loren Legarda recently participated in the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction, BBC World Debate and Forum on the Human Impact of Climate Change in Geneva, Switzerland.

During the launch of her humanitarian program Lingkod Loren in Luneta last October 23, 2009, Loren Legarda declared her intention to run for vice-president in 2010 under NPC. This week, NP Presidential candidate Manny Villar formally declared his team-up with Loren Legarda for the 2010 Elections.