MANILA, Philippines – Though the bank controversy hurt support for Rodrigo Duterte in some areas, he still managed to snatch a clear lead from his rival presidential candidates, the latest The Standard poll shows.
Duterte garnered 32% of respondents' support in the survey, conducted by Laylo Research Strategies and first published in The Standardon Thursday, May 5. It is the newspaper's last survey before the May 9 elections.
Conducted from April 27 to May 1, it covers the period when Senator Antonio Trillanes IV accused Duterte of hiding P227 million in a Bank of the Philippine Islands account.
The Davao City mayor posted a clear lead over his closest rivals Senator Grace Poe (25%) and administration bet Mar Roxas (22%). Because of the margin of error of +/-1.8, the latter two are statistically tied at second and third places.
Binay continued his downward spiral, landing at 4th place with 15%. Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago kept her 2%.
Despite Trillanes' expose, support for Duterte grew from 30% in the March 26-April 1 survey to 32% in this survey.
But the controversy seemed to hurt him in the National Capital Region and the Visayas.
In NCR, his rating dropped by one percentage point compared to the previous survey allowing Poe to reclaim her solo first-place status in the nation's capital.
In the Visayas, Roxas widened his lead over Duterte with 41% to Duterte's 25%. Last month, Duterte was closing in on Roxas with his 31% almost catching up with the Liberal Party bet's 35%.
What's keeping Duterte on top is the continued surge in Mindanao support. In the Davao region for instance, Duterte now has a phenomenal 87% of respondents' support. – Pia Ranada/Rappler.com