Miriam calls surveys 'mind-conditioning' tools

MANILA, Philippines — Presidential aspirant Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago on Friday insisted that the latest pre-election surveys were "mind-conditioning" strategies of other candidates.

For the past months, Santiago had been scoring single digits in presidential preference surveys conducted by Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations.

READ: Duterte, Marcos top picks in SWS Q1 survey | Duterte overtakes Poe in Pulse Asia poll

The senator, however, has been topping almost all campus and social media surveys since the filing of certificates of candidacy in October 2015.

"No one believes surveys anymore because, in the first place, it’s all over social media that my name has been removed from some of the forms used in these surveys so that respondents would be forced to vote for other candidates," Santiago said in a statement.

Santiago added that several individuals who have claimed to be respondents for pre-election polls said that they opted to answer "undecided" since her name was not included on the survey form.

The senators has topped several presidential surveys including:

• De La Salle University Manila, 75 percent
• Polytechnic University of the Philippines, 64 percent
• Universilty of the Philippines (UP) Los Baños, 86 percent
• University of Santo Tomas, 66 percent
• Ateneo De Manila University, 36.6 percent
• UP Manila, 59.5 percent
• University of Northern Philippines, 35.85 percent
• Malayan Colleges Laguna, 54.7 percent
• Colegio de San Juan de Letran, 58.5 percent
• UP Diliman, 41.6 percent
• Holy Angel University, 40 percent
• University of Asia and the Pacific, 43.2 percent
• Adamson University, 64 percent
• Ateneo de Naga University, 37.4 percent
• UP Baguio, 78.2 percent
• Philippine Normal University, 76 percent
• West Visayas State University, 47 percent
• UP cross-campus survey (Diliman, Los Baños, and Baguio), 56.5 percent

The presidential aspirant recently returned to campaigning after undergoing clinical trials for a new anti-cancer pill. She declared that the medicine she has been taking was working.