By Ellen Tordesillas
Malaya
Sept 2014 Pulse Asia survey.
At last, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas numbers moved up.
In a survey conducted by Pulse Asia, Roxas numbers almost doubled in a matter of two months. From seven percent last week of June, it jumped to 13 percent second week of September.
What could be the factors that contributed to respondents finally discovering Roxas after years of ignoring him when asked who they would vote if elections were held at the time the survey was conducted?
A quick scan of media headlines yielded only two issues where Roxas was featured in a prominent role: the announcement of the identification of police officers involved in the brazen EDSA daytime hulidap and his suggestion that President Aquino extends his stay in Malacañang beyond 2016.
Could that have gained for him enormous credit worth six percentage points jump in ratings?
It should be noted that on several occasions when President Aquino stressed the importance that his successor would be the one that would continue his “tuwid na daan” policy Roxas was beside him. Could Aquino’s popularity have rubbed off on him? But then Aquino’s satisfaction rating has been on the decline these past months.
Vice President Jejomar Binay and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas in a public meeting.
It’s possible that the increase of Roxas’s numbers was due to the demolition of Binay.
Since they were adversaries in the 2010 vice presidential elections and are expected to again be against each other in the 2016 presidential elections, Roxas is being presented as the opposite of Binay. The scenario being painted is frontrunner Binay is corrupt and Roxas is Mr. Clean.
Binay, as the survey showed, was clearly hurt by the expose on the alleged overpriced Makati City Hall Building 2 and other stories about institutionalized corruption when he was mayor and being continued by his son, Junjun.
A ten percentage point decline in Binay’s rating – from 41 percent last June down to 31 percent second week of September- is a huge drop. Binay should be worried considering that his opponents have said they are not through with him yet.
But I find the survey numbers puzzling.
Why did the rating of Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, who, together with Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, led the attack on Binay, also drop? From five per cent last June, Cayetano’s rating dipped to one.
Puzzling also is the decline in Sen. Grace Poe’s rating from 12 percent to 10 percent.Yet, the rating of former President Joseph Estrada increased by one percentage point -from nine to 10.
It’s still one year and eight months to the May 2016 elections. There are a lot of factors that will come into play.
But what is becoming clear is that the strategy of pulling down Binay to “level the playing field” is working in Roxas’s favor.
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