WITH more than 70 days before the 2022 national polls, the Publicus Asia has observed that there was not much movement in the pre-election voter preference for the presidential and vice presidential race compared to its December survey.

Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) standard-bearer Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. maintained his lead with a commanding 52 percent of the survey respondents picking him as their choice for president, giving him a 30 percentage points lead over distant second-placer Leni Robredo.

Marcos’ running-mate Inday Sara Duterte, meanwhile, was preferred by 54 percent of the respondents, a 40 percentage points lead over Sen. Francis Pangilinan, in the vice presidential race.

The Publicus Asia conducted the poll on 1,500 registered voters using a purposive sampling method where respondents were randomly selected from a research pool of 200,000 Filipinos maintained by Purespectrum, a Singapore office of US-based market research and insights platform.

Apart from Publicus, the BBM-Sara UniTeam maintained its 50 percent and above margin in several other respectable survey firms.

In the Pulse Asia January poll, Marcos improved his voter preference score from 53 percent last month to 60 percent while his running-mate scored 50 percent.

In Laylo Research, Marcos was picked by 64 percent and Duterte has 60 percent.

In the recent Social Weather Station (SWS) survey Marcos was preferred by 50 percent while Duterte got 44 percent.

Publicus Asia Executive Director Aureli Sinsuat, claimed over a radio interview that the no movement in survey numbers could only mean one thing.

“Para sa akin ang ibig sabihin noon medyo firm na ang boto ng mga tao. Ang ibig sabihin noon, at this point, nakapili na sila ng kandidato na gusto nila baka mahirap ng baguhin yun,” Sinsuat said adding that this could be advantageous to the election frontrunner.

However, he clarified that there is no room to be complacent for the leading candidates.

“Hindi naman po natin masasabi na tapos na ang kampanya. Mahabang-mahaba pa po ang kampanya, may dalawang buwan pa tayo at marami pang pwedeng mangyari. Pero ngayon sa lahat ng naganap itong last two months wala pang movement. BBM-Sara pa rin ang nangunguna,” he added.

The Publicus also noticed that Marcos’ refusal to attend several presidential forums did not affect his numbers.

“Wala pong masyadong movement sa mga numbers niya (Marcos) kahit hindi siya umattend sa mga nakaraang debate na pasok sa survey period namin,” Sinsuat noted.

In the same radio interview, Atty. Ed Chico, political analyst, reiterated that debates and forums are “not too significant to essentially sway votes, at least, based on what we see now.”

He cited that then presidential bet Noynoy Aquino who eventually won the 2010 national elections also did not attend in several debates and presidential forums