Aquino keeps lead in Philippine election survey

MANILA, Philippines – The son of the late president and democracy icon Corazon Aquino was the most favored candidate in a survey on next year's presidential elections, an independent pollster said Monday.

Sen. Benigno "Nonoy" Aquino III was the top choice of 44 percent of respondents, followed by Sen. Manny Villar, the wealthiest legislator who made his fortune as a real estate developer, with 19 percent, according to Pulse Asia's nationwide survey of 1,800 adults.

The October face-to-face survey has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

In a separate survey last month by Social Weather Stations, 60 percent of respondents named the 49-year-old Aquino among "the three best successors" to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, followed by Villar with 18 percent. Arroyo is barred by the constitution from seeking a second term.

Unlike other aspirants who had declared their presidential ambition months earlier, Aquino announced he will run only in early September following an outpouring of sympathy and support for his mother, who died of colon cancer in August.

He said he wants to continue the legacy of the woman who led the 1986 "people power" revolt that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos and shot her to power. She served as president from 1986 to 1992, and despite a patchy record remains a well-loved figure credited with restoring democratic institutions.

Her son is a three-term congressman and an economist by training. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1998 and re-elected in 2001 and 2004. He was elected senator in 2007.

Official campaigning for the May elections has not started and candidates have until Dec. 1 to file their nominations.