Trending Down

What we’re seeing in the opinion surveys, with a little over three months left before the elections, now appears to have the unmistakable signs of a trend. And unless Noynoy Aquino wakes up in time and does something about it, the trend may become irreversible.

Aquino’s Liberal Party has attempted to put a positive spin on the results of the latest Social Weather Stations/Businessworld survey, which shows the once-humongous lead of its standard-bearer over his closest pursuer, Senator Manny Villar, whittled down to a mere seven percentage points. According to an LP news release, the seven-percent difference between the top two candidates “would [still] amount to about 3 million votes if all 49 million Filipinos vote on May 10.”

Villar gains ground versus Aquino

LIBERAL PARTY standard-bearer Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” C. Aquino III remains the top pick among the 10 presidential aspirants green-lighted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) but the Nationalista Party’s (NP) Sen. Manuel “Manny” B. Villar appears to be fast catching up.

With the campaign period yet to officially start, a new BusinessWorld-Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey found 42% of respondents saying they would vote for Mr. Aquino, four points down from the 46% who said so in an early December poll that was also commissioned by this newspaper.