By Joann Santiago
MANILA, Dec. 7 (PNA) — A Malacanang official is not worried about the results of a commissioned elections survey showing Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte leading the 2016 presidential bets.
In a briefing Monday, Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said surveys “are always snapshots in time” as these show ideas of people for a certain time.
“There’s still a good six months to go before the elections — so the obligation of each candidate is to present their platform,” he said but stressed that “while there will be repeated surveys before May, the only survey that matters is actually (in) May.”
“So that’s the only survey that we will be looking forward to,” he said.
Lacierda also pointed out that since that particular survey of the Social Weather Station (SWS) was commissioned by a private individual, it has the name of Duterte and the other candidates unlike in other surveys of SWS or other survey institutes, which do not include names of certain individuals.
“I think anyone whose name would be on top would be taken advantage of the — of your numbers. It’s natural, it’s something that you would hype. So, I will not be surprised if the Duterte camp would hype the numbers. But again, this is a marathon, this is not a sprint so, we will wait for the survey in May or the elections in May to happen,” he said.
Lacierda said people are now intelligent to discern who will best lead them.
“It’s a people’s choice. It’s the people who decide: where do you want this country to move forward to?” he added. (PNA)