Will clarity of message win Manny Villar the Presidency?
According to the latest SWS survey, Noynoy Aquino is losing ground to Manny Villar. In the results of the SWS survey, Aquino slid down to 42% from 46%, Villar moved up to 35% from 27%, Estrada slid down to 13% from 16%, and Teodoro slid down to 4% down from 5%.
The survey was conducted in December, prior to the Senate hearing on the C-5 controversy where Villar’s colleagues were said to be set to censure him. One would expect that this heavily publicized political free for all at the senate — with several senators running for president — would cause Villar’s survey numbers to fall a couple of notches. At this point, the surfacing of the survey showing Villar gaining ground may actually be a ploy to project that Villar’s forward momentum was hardly affected by the negative publicity. It might be an attempt to project strength in the face of serious challenges.
Today, a news report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer has political analyst Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute of Political and Electoral Reform (IPER), attributing Villar’s “steady” rise in the surveys to the effective messaging of his political ads.
Certainly, the sheer Last Song Syndrome created by the bunch of kids singing Villar’s jingle may be enough to turn people into mindless voting drones. But Casiple proposes that Villar’s messaging may be helping him because of its emphasis and clarity on what he will do rather than what he will fight against.
Here’s what Casiple says:
Sen. Manuel Villar had been able to narrow the gap between him and Aquino not only because of his many ads but also because Aquino had not been able to get across his message of what he would do if he won the presidency.
Casiple acknowledged that Aquino “has come out strongly against corruption and against the sins of the Arroyo administration, but we are electing the nation’s leader here and people expect him to be able to do something about their myriad of problems.”
“The perception is Villar is saying ‘I will take you all out of poverty’ while for Noynoy, it’s like ‘I will think about it but I promise you I won’t steal,’” Casiple added.
Casiple certainly has his adherents and I don’t want to assail the integrity of his perceptual analysis, but it seems unlikely that mere messaging through political ads can trump actual issues. The article in the Inquirer seems, particularly this excerpt, seems to cast Casiple as endorsing Villar.
Reading the article further, Casiple’s analysis doesn’t come up all rosy for Villar as it indicates that although the candidate has made gains, these gains are coming at a slower rate.
While the SWS survey indicated that Aquino was vulnerable, the results showed that Villar’s surge had slowed down. “In the previous survey, his numbers jumped from 27 to 33 percent but now it only increased from 33 to 35 percent,” Casiple said.
He said this was because the number of undecided voters had gone down to just one percent and so for the candidates to move upward in the polls, they would have to raid voters from other camps. “This means the next stage of the campaign will really be a slugfest.”
Casiple further points out what Villar has to do in order to win over Aquino:
“If Senator Villar wants to go up, he will have to find a way to get Estrada’s support or cannibalize Erap. And since Noynoy is now vulnerable, I expect Senator Villar to continue going after him,” Casiple said.
He said Estrada was vulnerable because the public was already thinking that this was going to be a fight between Aquino and Villar.
Casiple said Villar still faced an uphill battle if he wanted to top Aquino because his surge had slowed down.
“The latest survey showed that he got one percentage point from Aquino over the last three weeks. At this rate, it means a deduction of 1 percentage point [from Aquino] every three weeks [but] we only have around 90 days left. So, it’s really going to be hard,” he said.
Only at the foot of the article do we see Casiple saying that the C-5 controversy may actually affect Villar’s numbers:
Casiple added that Villar’s numbers might also be affected in the next survey by the raging C-5 controversy in the Senate.
“It’s expected to be bad for him and I don’t think the Liberal Party will just take this (latest survey results) sitting down,” he said.
I think that the article as a whole might have been poorly constructed and in its construction lent the impression that Casiple was favoring Villar in his analysis.
Mikee Cojuangco Leads Black Propaganda Campaign for Cousin Noynoy
The buzz in the blogosphere is that Noynoy Aquino, through cousin Mikee Cojuangco, engaged a web development firm called Voncore to design and develop a black propaganda website to help take down Aquino’s chief rival Manny Villar in the May 2010 elections.
According to its company website, Voncore is owned by Rogelio Santos, Jr, a US-based entrepreneur who also happens to be a fan of Noynoy Aquino on Facebook.
The whistle-blower hinted that a briefing for the project was held at the residence of Mikee for the development team.
The plan was to copy the look and feel of Manny Villar’s website and use a close-sounding web address — reportedly mannyvillar.org — to draw voters to the site, and then bombard them with black propaganda content once there. This is a tactic known as “phishing”, and commonly used by Internet hackers to steal credit card numbers and other sensitive information from unsuspecting users.
let’s just wait for the website to go live to prove it.
The message of Manny Villar to put an end to poverty in the Philippines is indeed clear but impracticable. Only those who believe that it is possible will vote for him.
His approach is definitely smart because Filipinos are more influenced through emotional presentations than those which are intellectual. His ad campaign manager is truly brilliant.
The message is too good to be true, and reinforces what the masa, which decide the election outcome, what they want to hear……….
It worked for Erap in 1998 and sadly, it will work again for Villar in 2010……….
The latest SWS survey saya Villar down by 6% while Erap up by 6% thus we can say that as the rate going on now that the TV adds is now control and under close watch to comply the limits then it is again as we forsight a vote for popularity the playing field being level by Villar by spending billions in TV adds slowly boomerang and as like a water it always settle to its true level after stirring then if a 6% to 1% down of Villar every week or so which and a gain of Erap in lieu of Villar’s lost it seems and Erap VS Noynoy in the end game as the gameplan of any battle will be decided in the endgame. Can we say we it is Erap again in May hopefully the people already learn their lesson. Or can just say that Villar strategist is short sighted that they did not anticipate that they just copy from Erap the color, slogan, etc then once the original started to come they all slowly fade so they need to realign change there gameplan before it’s too late because if the trending is true they share the same core of voter that slowly the saturation of Villar’s billions TV adds is nearing ad election is still far away so they miscalculate the timing and in any game and contest timing is important for you to WIN…….
Yes, the ad manager is truly brilliant!