Former House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano was the top choice of social media users for the May 2022 senatorial race, a Davao City-based survey firm has found.
The University of Mindanao-Institute of Popular Opinion (UM-IPO) conducted the survey from December 21 to 28, 2021 with respondents it described as “Filipino social media users from different regions of the Philippines.”
“Since the survey was done online as physical contact is still not allowed during the time of conduct of the survey, IPO relied heavily on online and targeted social media users who are targeted and identified via sponsored ads in two social media platforms of Meta (Facebook and Instagram),” the survey body said in a statement.
Cayetano, who had served as Senator from 2007 to 2017, garnered a preferential rate of 35.5 percent to emerge as the number one choice of the respondents.
This is the second survey the former Speaker has topped for the senatorial race, the first being Pulse Asia’s Ulat ng Bayan survey which was released last December.
Cayetano expressed gratitude for the people’s trust and vowed to remain focused on his priorities, particularly the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the welfare of overseas Filipino workers.
“Our priority right now remains the same: conducting programs and pushing for laws that will improve the health and livelihood of our kababayans all over the country and abroad,” he said in a statement.
The former Speaker has been lobbying for the approval of the 10K Ayuda bill, which aims to provide every Filipino family with P10,000 in cash aid. The program, he said, will act as a direct stimulus that will keep the country’s money rolling.
With no action from the House of Representatives, Cayetano and his allies in Congress together with private donors last year started the Sampung Libong Pag-asa program, a financial aid initiative that encourages microenterprises.
As of January 21, 2022, the program has provided P10,000 in aid to a total of 15,778 beneficiaries nationwide.
Cayetano, who was Foreign Affairs Secretary from 2017 to 2018, has also been calling for the the immediate formation of the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) before it gets put on the back burner as the administration transitions to a new one.
Authored by Cayetano in the House of Representatives, the DMW Act was signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte on December 30, 2021.
Because the the formation of the DMW might take more than a year, Cayetano said he is hoping the next President would immediately pick up where the previous one leaves off in order to benefit more overseas Filipinos.
