Noynoy Aquino's ratings is still high

I've been in the business of marketing research for more than eight years now, which started with my stint in Singapore. And one of the things I believe that I can expertly call an expertise is market surveys and other tools of market research. Being a post-graduate student in Communications research from the University of the Philippines-Diliman, I can look at the figures of a survey and provide an accurate reading.

When the first survey results came out, showing Noynoy Aquino's ratings at 56%, I was first to write that this is actually not a good thing since, this rating will eventually go down. Why? First, historically, no one has ever maintained such a high rating, even the ever popular former president Joseph Estrada. Second, previous elections would show you that presidentiables maintain just a ratings of between 25-32%, the highest one Erap got. And Erap got more than 35-40% of the electorate votes in 1998, the highest ever by a president.

Now, it would be presumptuous for anyone to say that an Aquino would replicate an Erap. Of course, that would totally be impossible.

Aquino's rating is now pegged at 44%, no significant improvement from his previous month's ratings. This just shows that Aquino's "natural constituency" of 40-44% is still high. Meaning, even if Manny Villar whittles the margins down to 11 percentage points, it would still be impossible for Villar to actually catch up with Aquino.

What had happened in the current ratings game is simple---Chiz Escudero's supporters have naturally broken up and most of them actually benefited Manny Villar instead of Estrada. Probably, some segments of the Youth support for Chiz gravitated to Teodoro, that's why Teodoro's ratings "improved" to 5% from 0.8%

Yet, like what I wrote some weeks ago, Villar's and Escudero's camps share the same constituency and evidently, when Escudero withdrew from the race, most of them would shift to Villar and some also to Noynoy.

Now, the entire game would change if Escudero suddenly goes public and express his support to Noynoy Aquino. When that happens, Villar's numbers would be affected and it would surely go down to about 4-6 percentage points. Aquino's numbers would also widen and other presidentiables will not be able to catch up.

So, the present ratings "boost" for Villar is not entirely a good thing for the Nacionalista bet. This will still change and Villar's will eventually plateau between 27-33%, still not enough to give Aquino a good showing at the polls. 

Do I agree with Senator Aquilino Pimentel's statement saying that the "emotional support" of the people for Noynoy is slowing down? Yes, I agree. 

In fact, as early as December of last year, support for Noynoy Aquino has ceased to be just an emotional knee-jerk reaction after the death of Cory. What we saw as the 44% ratings of Noynoy is a manifestation already of "rational choice".

Take note---Noynoy's ratings right now are more "believable" since these reflect rational choices already by a significant number of the electorate.

Meaning, all the Liberals have to do is maintain the current 40-44% support and bar any controversy, and they will win eventually.

Now, what would make Villar win over Noynoy? Let us make a comprehensive study about that in my next blog entry, so stay tuned.