Noynoy Aquino must do the rounds more than Villar

John Nery's opinion column today is worth reading, especially by those working for the poll victory of Senator Noynoy Aquino. The recent surveys should be a cause of alarm since Aquino's distrust rating has suddenly plummeted from 10 to 12, the same distrust rating of his closest rival, Manny Villar. Though most of his observations are valid, Nery's suggestion is, to my opinion, wrong.

The only way for Noynoy to gain more traction and lessen his distrust rating is simply work to expand his horizontal sectoral or grassroots organization. There is no other way. He cannot fight Villar in the infomercial game since it entails huge sums of money. He can, however, increase his sorties, even make it triple, which is less expensive than putting it in 350,000 peso TV spots.

Being a non-traditional candidate, Noynoy must do a lot of non-traditional methods to gain more conversion of votes. His problem is not awareness. Noynoy's dilemma is how to increase his conversion. If you look at the surveys, Noynoy is effective in reaching out to people. He just needs more areas to cover and more places to go to and share his platform with the people.

And since it is but a few months prior to May 10, Noynoy must cover more ground than his closest rival. Instead of concentrating on vote-rich provinces, Noynoy must go to those areas with smaller constituencies because fraud usually occurs or happens in those places. Meaning, he must not leave any stone unturned.

This month is most critical in any candidate's life simply because this is when people make decisions. Most voters have already decided whom to vote for and many would probably keep those decisions closer to their sleeves. The last few surveys would dictate whether we will have a minority president for this year OR someone with a simple majority. Sectoral endorsements are very important in this phase of the campaign and those who already secured them enjoy a very comfortable margin leading to the polls.