The Social Weather Station released its latest survey, and here’s an extract from their press release:

Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III took the top spot in the people’s three best successors to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2010, according to the Third Quarter 2009 Social Weather Survey, fielded over September 18-21, 2009.

Sixty percent gave Sen. Aquino’s name in response to the question, “Sa ilalim ng kasalukuyang Konstitusyon, ang termino ni Pang. Arroyo ay hanggang sa taong 2010 lamang at magkakaroon ng halalan para sa pagka-pangulo sa Mayo 2010. Sinu-sino sa palagay ninyo ang mga magagaling na lider na dapat pumalit kay Pang. Arroyo bilang Presidente? Maaari po kayong magbanggit ng hanggang tatlong sagot.” [Under the present Constitution, the term of Pres. Arroyo is up to 2010 only, and there will be an election for a new President in May 2010. Who do you think are good leaders who should succeed Pres. Arroyo as President? You may give up to three names].

The next most popular successor was Sen. Manny Villar, who was mentioned by 37%.

Aquino and Villar were followed by former Pres. Joseph Estrada at 18%, Sen. Francis Escudero at 15%, and Sen. Mar Roxas at 12%.

The survey found Vice-Pres. Noli De Castro mentioned by 8%, Sen. Loren Legarda by 5%, Defense Sec. Gilberto Teodoro by 4%, Sen. Panfilo Lacson by 2%, and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay by 2%.

At 1 percent each were MMDA Chairperson Bayani Fernando and Brother Eddie Villanueva.

Six percent could not give an answer, and 4% had no one to recommend.

The accompanying illustration, however, is more illuminating:

The question of the public’s own shortlist of successors for presidency has been tracked for two years now. Over that time frame, some names have remained in the running, and new ones have been added by the respondents. An interesting take on the results reported over the past two years can be found in Atheista.net’s It’s Time To Coin A New Term: Getting Roco’d, particularly in relation to two potential candidates, Loren Legarda and Francis Escudero.

Regarding Legarda, Atheista has this to say:

The sidelight perhaps is Loren Legarda. She probably won’t run for president; nor has she any chance of winning the top office for the rest of her life, but for a stretch of time from September 2007 to February 2009, Legarda was actually within striking distance of the top spot. This is reminiscent of the late Raul Roco’s performance in surveys prior to 2001 wherein he was constantly topping polls. While it was clear that Roco did himself in with the exposure of his lackluster political machinery, dodgy choice of senatoriables and *ugh* running mate; it is unclear what Legarda did to sabotage her own chances.

A lot of people hated Legarda for flip-flopping on Gloria – and ironically, this is despite the already growing hatred for the GMA Administration back in 2004 — but she still managed to bag 44% of the respondents’ votes of confidence back in 2007. I guess that only means that the 2004 incident was not the reason why she was dropped. The only hypothesis I could offer is that her supporters identified with Noynoy Aquino and Manny Villar – the two candidates whose popularity rose as hers was plummeting.

And here’s Atheista on Francis Escudero:

One interesting sidelight is how surprisingly bad Chiz Escudero’s showing has been. Despite topping the recent senatorial polls and taking every opportunity to spew out empty words on television, Escudero’s preference ratings have stayed pretty much the same over the last 2 years. There is no momentum at all. I won’t even be surprised if he finishes a distant third (or even fourth) when all is said and done. Joseph Estrada might even erode his chances of a third spot finish (not that it matters!) since Escudero’s base of support is supposedly the youth – a demographic that is also captured by the Aquino juggernaut.

Personally, I think the survey results are useful not in terms of presenting a snapshot of how voters might vote, were elections held today, but rather, who, in the public mind, are the real contenders at this point in time. I’ve suggested in the past that we’re seeing a return, in voter attitudes and orientation, towards seeing the presidential contest as a two party fight, which is a more natural order of things as far as a presidential system with no runoff elections is concerned.

From this perspective, the fight for the presidency is between Benigno Aquino III and Manuel Villar Jr. The other candidates will determine who gets to shave off votes from the leading contenders and who ends up losing more votes to the minor candidates more than the other.

Philippine Commentary in Why SWS Presidential Survey Does Not Add Up To 100% But 300% looks at the survey methodology, and proposes,

My take is that when the respondents get to that third possible choice, they end up naming their father, mother, wife, uncle, mayor, themselves! or some other unknown that together with everybody else’s third choices usually make up to half of the SWS data!

But as it should, the data does add up to 300% in all columns. I have a theory I cannot prove, that it is actually the second placer in these SWS polls that represents a kind of plurality choice. Noynoy has come out of nowhere (less than 0.14 percent!) to take a whopping –but sympathy confounded–60%.

Now there’s a graphic in the entry that’s quite interesting. Philippine Commentary for some time has been pointing out that what gets lost in all the reporting and commentary on the SWS surveys is the percentage of undecided voters or those who decide on no choices whatsoever:

The Chart above does not include the present survey, the first one which has Aquino manifesting himself as a top-of-mind choice among respondents as a potential president. If you remember the surveys, prior to the Aquino phenomenon, had Villar as the front-runner; in fact it seemed entirely possible he’d reached the critical 25% threshhold political pros considered the make-or-break level for a presidential candidate: it’s what would mark a candidate as the man to beat in a presidential election in a multi-candidate race.

There were questions raised about whether or not Villar’s reaching the crucial 25% level in the surveys represented his peaking too early or not; this question was complicated by the entry of Aquino, and initial survey findings of his obtaining startlingly high figures not only in Luzon, but the Visayas (Lito Osmena’s privately-commissioned Cebu survey) and Mindanao (Rodrigo Duterte’s privately commissioned Davao congressional districts survey).

Whether one doubts the usefulness or even methodology of the question SWS has been tracking for two years now, the question of whether or not Villar had peaked too soon, for example, or the percentage of support Aquino actually enjoys, can only be answered by surveys that ask potential voters to make specific choices based on who they’d vote for, were elections held that day.

There was a rider -a privately-commissioned set of questions- attached to the SWS September 18-21 Survey, which addresses the questions of who, specifically, voters would vote for, for the presidency, vice-presidency, and in terms of tandems.

Here are the results of that privately-commissioned rider set of questions:

Based on the above, Villar seems to have peaked; or at the very least, the entry of Aquino, whose national results are in harmony with previous location-specific surveys, and make him the front-runner, means the Villar campaign has to work doube-time; what I don’t know, because these were the only results provided me, is if there were other candidates reflected in the results or whether the rider limited the choices to the figures above.

The President and the former Senate President both had the same problem: much as they tried to entice the Vice-President to join them for the 2010 campaign, he turned both down. In Nobody Loves Me, Manuel Buencamino says the President was scorned once, but Villar’s been scorned twice: his efforts to entice both Senator Chiz Escudero and the Vice-President being rebuffed. Only then did Villar make noises about Senator Pia Cayetano being his (third) choice for Veep. Yesterday, there was talk that Wowowee host Willie Revillame would announce his entry in politics as Villar’s Veep, but it seems more likely that Revillame might instead head the Nacionalista senate slate.

The President did better in terms of having on hand what’s been widely-discussed as her personal choice as her successor, her Defense Secretary, Gilbert Teodoro Jr. (the choice of the President’s husband supposedly being the Vice-President). She did better because her defense secretary is a closer approximation of what she has put forward as her advantages as a chief executive: hard-working, highly educated, a reliable coalition player. His list of priorities and to-dos is in harmony with the existing administration agenda (more or less). And he isn’t shy about it.

And he’s been moderately successful in inspiring the faithful to work to ensure that the good times keep rolling on.

You’ll see that there was a bump (above, in blue) in the Defense Secretary’s being in the limelight when the Frankenstein coalition declared it intended to make him their official standard-bearer. the problem is whether that bump can be sustained; there seems to be the belief that simply because he’s been anointed by the President’s people, Teodoro’s campaign will not only take off like a rocket, but that it makes him, almost immediately, a candidate on par with, say, Aquino, or Villar or Escudero.

Today’s Inquirer editorial, The company he keeps, points out that much as Teodoro puts a refined face on the Frankenstein coalition, no one has any illusions as to what the coalition consists of, what it’s done, and what it will do if it stays in power. Which may account for the bump being much smaller than one might expect if Teodoro were to be weighed on his own merits. But the reality is his merits aside, the very viability of his campaign, such as it is, rests entirely on the very same ruling coalition that shares the President’s present lack of palatability to the public.

A friend did a similar search (annotated with red arrows, below) that suggests the endorsement of the party elders was a much-needed boost. All along, he’d lacked exposure even abroad (hence “gilbert teodoro soes not have enough search volume for ranking”), which had basically paid attention to Estrada and Aquino in the news.

Another search by my friend (below) shows how humdrum the campaign was until the entry of Aquino; and how the trajectory of Aquino (blue) suddenly puts what had seemed to be the gaining momentum of an Estrada comeback (in green) in stark comparison. If every candidate registers a momentary, steep, ascent upon announcing his candidacy, then Aquino’s set the threshold, which Teodoro’s obviously failed to seriously rival; put another way, Villar (red) and even Estrada (green), should they formally announce, are already at rates that could potentially mark Teodoro’s peak; they would pull away from Teodoro at his best and potentially intercept Aquino.

My own search is below.

The chart above suggests that the past year saw the Villar campaign (orange), well-oiled, chugging along; his closest rival being Chiz Escudero (green). Just when Villar was breaking away, Aquino (red) entered the fray; so almost immediately, just as Villar became the front-runner, he was displaced by Aquino, who took off like a rocket. But even then, Villar remains the leading contender to Aquino.

Contending for front-runner status, then, are Aquino and Villar; contending for rival to them, in turn, in Escudero. With the Vice-President apparently dropping out of the race, it will be interesting to see how his followers redistribute themselves among the other contenders.

However, Teodoro simply isn’t a real contender at this point, and it would be surprising to see him become a serious contender anytime soon. Anytime ever.

Then again, this has surely been plotted out and projected by the Palace. They know they will never have a frontrunner or even a truly viable contender. What they do have, is someone who acts as a consolation to the faithful, keeping them from getting too depressed. It also takes Teodoro out of action precisely when the more thuggish side of the administration will be required, going into 2010.

Teodoro is useful in simply taking the front-runner, Aquino, down a notch or two; by putting forward their non-candidate candidate, the administration simply fosters the (wrong) perception that somehow, their candidate’s on par with Aquino; it diminishes, in turn, Villar and Escudero.

Then again if you want to be pragmatic about it, it’s also like the story of the tar baby. Teodoro is the tar baby; if Aquino, like Brer Rabbit, makes the mistake of engaging Teodoro as if he’s a serious candidate, it bogs down Aquino in a fight along the irrelevant lines the Palace wants (”qualifications and experience” the same argument Marcos used against Cory; when the reason that Teodoro is below ground level in terms of public perception is that his qualifications and experience, such as they are, have been put at the service of the President and her Frankenstein coalition, which makes them as appealing as qualifications and experience doing book-keeping or money laundering for The Mob). Bogged down wrestling the tar baby, Aquino would then be fair game for Villar or Escudero to jump on his back -the real fight.

Which, to the truly pragmatically inclined, might suggest either or both are the actual Anointed Ones of the President, not Teodoro. The clue to see which might be the True Anointed is to see who, explicitly or implictly, gets the support of this man:

The one on the left, Ramon Ang of San Miguel, for example. The man in the middle, Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. collects the dividends but no longer does the grunt work; the lady on the right, the President, presides over a coalition notorious for getting candidates to run, only to leave them in the lurch, without machinery or funding, once they’ve committed (ask Cesar Montano and Manny Pacquiao, both of whom were popular to start with).It’s interesting that the end days of her administration are focused on closing truly big deals (with San Miguel, for example).

A candidate like Teodoro, who starts off not even within striking distance of the leading candidates, is someone no administration will back up fully with its resources. Those resources would be better used to reclaim the Senate, for example, or maintain its existing bailiwicks on the local level. The only use Teodoro serves is a political tar baby.

But the Frankenstein coalition includes its group of business backers; and it will be interesting to see on whom they’ll be placing their bets. If they spread out their funding, that means the administration coalition’s history; if they continue to bet big, it will be in expectation of maintaining or even expanding, the benefits they’ve received from the President and her people. To see who they back, is to see the administration’s true Anointed One(s).

The present Constitution imposes only three requirements to be elected President of the Philippines:

1. One must be 40 years of age on the day of election;

2. One must be a natural-born Filipino citizen;

3. One must be able to read and write.

Presidential Bio Data

I’ve put together a comparative chart of presidents elected to office, so that readers can take a look at past presidential biodatas, for the purpose of evaluating those seeking the presidency in 2010. Lists like these, however, can’t reflect the changing attitudes and preferences of voters as to what they consider essential requirements for the presidency.

For example, there are basically two eras: 1935 to 1969 (the last pre-martial law presidential election) and post-1986 to the present. In the first era, Ramon Magsaysay, the lone non-lawyer prior to 1969, would be in many ways the major exception to the expectation of a long, sustained, record of public service beginning in local, then provincial, and legislative and executive positions. But in many ways he was the harbinger of our modern, post-party machine politics, and so ties in to the post-1986 trend Marcos helped launch by means of institutionalizing mistrust of lawyer-presidents.

Of the twelve presidents elected in national elections, the following observations can be made.

Education: seven were lawyers (all of whom were top ten in the Bar exams); two had degrees in economics; two had doctorates; only one didn’t finish college.

Pre-profession: Aside from their main professions, six had other professions/occupations, including two poets.

Military: Five achieved officer rank in the military.

Judicial: none served in the judiciary.

Legislative: three served as municipal councilors; eight have served in the lower house, with four serving as committee chairmen, and two of them as Speaker of the House; eight have been senators, and three have been Senate President, and two, Senate President Pro Tempore.

Executive: One has served as mayor; five have been provincial governors (including Magsaysay’s serving as Military Governor of Zambales); nine have held presidential or executive appointments in the bureaucracy or civil service; in addition, seven have held cabinet portfolios, with two each holding the National Defense and Foreign Affairs portfolios. Six have been elected Vice-President, four have succeeded to the presidency from that position (three by virtue of the death of the president, one by authority of the Supreme Court).

 After yet another query asking about yesterday’s “missing” column (for some reason, it cannot be easily located on Inquirer.net; I had to Google it), I thought I should post it here on Current. Let me know what you think!

Published on May 26, 2009

When it comes to everyone’s favorite pastime—no, not watching the latest Hayden Kho sex video but handicapping favorites in the equally rough-and-tumble world of presidential politics—everybody has an opinion. But this emphatically does not mean that one man’s guess is as good as any other’s. I say this not simply because I have a vested interest in professional commentary and political journalism; I say this because certain factors are already in play, and opinion that does not take them into account is worse than useless.

Political facts, of course, may be read differently. In the interest of greater accountability, I would like to advance the following five theses, with which I propose to frame my reading of 2010. [Read the rest of this entry »]

The other day, I was asked yet another question about intelligent electorates. Do Filipinos vote for the most popular, even if the most popular are not necessarily the most qualified? Or (to use the terms the interviewers used): Is the Filipino “audience” intelligent? How about the Filipino “electorate”?

I gave a qualified answer, of course, making a distinction between the way we vote for the presidency and the way we vote for the Senate. I use that same distinction in my column of February 10, where I propose that our next president, come May 2010, can only be either of the following: Kabayan, Loren, Manny Villar, Chiz, Ping, and Mar. (Is the fact that Manny Villar does not have a ready one-word handle boon or bane?)

But it is possible, even when we only have a single vote to cast rather than the 12 we can use for the Senate, to send clear signals to the candidates, a point I raised in passing in my column of February 3.

Consider the case of Loren Legarda. The 1998 Senate topnotcher, she did not do well in the voters’ preferences surveys conducted by SWS in the run-up to the 2004 vote.

In the December 2002 survey, for example, Raul Roco and FPJ topped the list, with Kabayan and GMA in striking distance. Loren, however, had a measly dieter’s slice of the pie.

In that same survey, however, Legarda did quite well in the vice-presidential list. She placed second to Kabayan (who had just topped the Senate race a year and a half before, in 2001).

As it turns out (here is an SWS news release for its November 2003 survey, about a year after the first poll), Legarda’s vice-presidential qualities (to coin a phrase) impressed more and more Filipinos. By November 2003, the race between De Castro and Legarda had become a real contest.

My point: In 2004, voters were discriminating enough to make a distinction between Legarda as president and Legarda as vice-president. (In contrast, voters were equally happy to say they would vote for Noli de Castro either as president or as vice-president — at least until FPJ threw his hat into the ring.) I see that distinction-making as a sign that, in fact, and by and large, voters in the aggregate know what they want.

Here, then, is intelligence, of a sort, at work.