Philippine opposition lawmaker Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino held a 19-point lead over his nearest rival in next month’s presidential election, the biggest margin since December, a poll showed yesterday.
Support for Aquino, the son of the country’s late democracy leader Corazon “Cory” Aquino, hit 39 percent. He increased his lead over main rival Manuel “Manny” Villar, whose approval rating slipped to 20 percent, pollster Pulse Asia said.
Villar, a property magnate-turned-senator, was tied in second place with former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada, who had made steady gains, the poll showed.
PHOTO: REUTERS
More than 50 million Filipinos will choose a president and nearly 18,000 national and local officials in the country’s first automated vote count on May 10.
Analysts say Villar’s ratings have slipped because he is seen as close to unpopular Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her husband, and for running a lavish election campaign.
Villar has denied any links with Arroyo, whose popularity plunged to a record minus 53 percent last month over allegations of election fraud and corruption during her nine years in office.
The survey involved 1,800 respondents across the country and was conducted on April 23-25. The poll results, which have a 2 percent margin of error, were posted on the Pulse Asia Web site.
MUSCLE MATTERS
Analysts say money, muscle and established political machinery mean more than opinion polls in Philippines elections.
“Surveys are not very good indicators, in view of past records and in view of the system they use, which is not very accurate,” said Benito Lim, political science professor at the Ateneo de Manila University.
He said polls did not show issues or the reasons behind respondents’ choices
On Monday, pollster Social Weather Stations issued its own survey results, showing Aquino with a double-digit margin over Villar for the first time since December.
Government candidate Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro remained a distant fourth with a 7 percent rating.
In related news, the Philippines’ defense secretary said yesterday that there would be cheating in next month’s national elections and people were already trying to bribe polling officials.
“I’m telling you that the cheating has [already] begun,” Norberto Gonzales told a gathering of Christian and Muslim religious leaders. “There will be cheating in the coming elections.”
UP FOR GRABS
More than 17,000 posts, from president to town councilor will be up for grabs in the election.
Gonzales did not say who was behind the cheating, but said people had already begun trying to bribe members of the body overseeing the poll, the Commission on Elections.
“Some money is being distributed to some officials already these days,” he said.
Gonzales also said that many civic groups had made dire warnings about how vulnerable the voting system was to cheating, and that he shared these concerns.
“You cannot help but start asking questions,” he said.
The Philippines has one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies, but it is also wracked by corruption and violence.
Arroyo’s victory in the 2004 elections was marred by allegations she sought to manipulate the vote by calling an election official.
Arroyo’s spokesman, Gary Olivar, said Gonzales did not mention his concerns to the president, but conceded he may be correct.
“He is being frank ... in order to prepare people so they can cooperate with the duly constituted authorities,” Olivar said.
However Commission on Elections spokesman James Jimenez denied any knowledge of cheating and said Gonzales had not raised this matter with his group.
“I invite the good secretary to back up his words before he starts maligning a government agency,” he said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion