Santiago, Robredo top DLSU Mock Elections

The DLSU Mock Elections, organized by Boto Lasalyano, Sulong Pilipino (BLSP) and conducted last April 19 via an online survey, saw the Lasallian vote going to presidential candidate Miriam Defensor-Santiago (48.21 percent) and vice presidential hopeful Leni Robredo (66.83 percent).

Results of the survey were bared to the community on the evening of the final leg of the Commission on Elections-organized PiliPinas presidential debates.

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte trails Defensor-Santiago with 25.60 percent, followed by former Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Roxas with 15.67 percent. Senator Grace Poe-Llamanzares and Vice President Jejomar Binay, on the other hand, have 4.73 and 2.16 percent, respectively. 3.63 percent of Lasallian voters opted to abstain.

Senator Bongbong Marcos places a far second in the vice presidential poll with 13.45 percent, followed by Senator Alan Peter Cayetano with 11.96 percent. Senator Chiz Escudero trails with 1.76 percent of all votes, followed closely by Senator Sonny Trillanes IV, who has 1.43 percent. Senator Gregorio Honasan rounds out the vice presidential hopefuls with 0.54 percent. However, 4.03 percent of Lasallian voters abstained from voting.

The poll, which was opened to the entire Lasallian community — that is, those with DLSU email addresses, including administrators, faculty, graduate students, staff, and even graduates — garnered a total of 3,696 votes. At a 95 percent confidence level, the survey’s 3,540 student respondents and 156 faculty and staff respondents have an estimated 1.57 margin of error.

The results of BLSP’s presidential mock elections echo those of a survey conducted by Ang Pahayagang Plaridel (APP) with 1,000 Lasallian students in the latter half of March. In the said survey, Santiago led all presidential candidates with 47 percent, followed by Duterte with 31 percent. However, Roxas had overtaken Poe in BLSP’s polls, as Poe had 9 percent of votes to Roxas’ 6 percent in APP’s survey.

On the other hand, Robredo overtook Cayetano in her landslide win in the April mock poll, as Cayetano had placed first in APP’s March survey at 35 percent. Robredo had garnered 28 percent of all votes in APP’s survey, followed by Marcos (17 percent), Escudero (11 percent), Trillanes (4 percent), and Honasan (2 percent).

“I was overwhelmed and happy with the voter’s turnout of the Mock Elections given that we were able to get more than 20 percent of the student population to participate in it,” says USG President Pram Menghrajani on the mock polls. “It shows the willingness of students to voice out their vote and partake in a simulation of the democratic process.”

BLSP will launch a senatorial mock elections on Tuesday, April 26.