Team DailyPedia
Incumbent Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and former Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan lead in the latest Senatorial polls conducted by Pulse Asia Research, Incorporated last March 9, 2016. Meanwhile, boxing superstar and Congressman Manny Pacquiao’s ranking plummeted.
The said survey was conducted from February 16 to 27, 2016 which was participated in by 5,200 registered voters.
According to Rappler, in the ABS-CBN commissioned national survey, Sotto ranked first at a 50.6% voters’ preference, followed by Pangilinan at 47.2%.
Meanwhile, Pacquiao ranked at 8th to 11th with 33.2%. Pacquiao used to have a 46.9% voter preference rating in early February 2016. However, Pacquiao’s popularity started plummeting after he compared homosexuals to animals in an interview in February.
Please read: Manny Pacquiao’s same-sex marriage remark earns the ire of netizens, celebrities
Among the probable winners, five of them are re-electionists: Sotto, Senate President Franklin Drilon, Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto, Sergio Osmena III, and Teofisto “TG” Guingona III.
Moreover, four candidates are attempting to make a comeback to the Senate: Pangilinan, Panfilo Lacson, Miguel Zubiri, and Richard Gordon.
The rest of the candidates leading the survey were mostly former or incumbent lawmakers: Pacquiao, Risa Hontiveros (former Akbayan partylist representative), Valenzuela City Congressman Sherwin Gatchalian, and Joel Villanueva who was a former CIBAC partylist representative.
Leila de Lima, former Justice Secretary, was the sole senatorial candidate who was on the top of the survey who did not have any experience as a lawmaker.
