Vital statistics for campaign strategizing and planning

The 2022 elections shall be won via digital platform. To prove this, may I share the product of research from the Comelec website, Pulse Asia survey results, and from the data gathered by the government's Department of Information and Communication Technology, and other online sources of data and information. The strategists and think tanks of all the candidates should have tremendous need for these.

First of all, by the end of September 2021, the total Filipino registered voters are 63.36 million out of the more than 110 million Filipinos. By the end of the registration period this month, we should estimate the total number of registered voters to reach 65 million. That means that there are only 46 million who are below 18 years of age or above 18 but not registered. If we go by the average number of registered voters who will not cast their votes, we can easily predict that no less than five million will stay away from the polls, leaving only 60 million. And the invalid votes out of them are estimated to be three million.

Therefore Leni, Isko, Ping, Pacman, Bongbong, and whoever will replace Bato, plus the 91 other nuisance bets shall have a pintakasi fight for the remaining 57 million valid votes. The winner should have at least 15 to 18 million votes to win, at the very least, as another plurality president. Remember that President FVR won only with 23% in 1992 garnering a very flimsy plurality of only 5,342,521 votes over Miriam's 4,468,173 votes. FVR only won by less than a million. The total registered voters were 32,141,079. Only 24,254 voted and there were only 22,654,195 valid votes cast. Danding got 4,116,376; Mitra, 3,316,661; Imelda, 2,338,294; Salonga, 2,302,124; and the poor Doy Laurel only 770,046.

The research shows that the voter segments are: ABC (the rich and the filthy rich plus upper middle class) only commands 13%. Most of these will go to Leni and Ping. The D has the overwhelming majority of 74% and this will be contested by Pacman, Isko, and Bongbong, The E is 13% and only Pacman will most probably corner this group. Urban voters are 49% and they will go to Leni and Ping, and rural voters are 51% to be shared by Pacman, Isko, and Bongbong. The age brackets are: 18 to 24 (15%), 24 to 34 (20%), 35 to 44 (20%), 45 to 54 (20%), 55 to 64 (15%), and 65 up (10%). The urban youth and educated sectors will most probably go for Leni and Ping.

By geography, Luzon has 45%, Visayas 19%, and Mindanao 22%. This bloc will be fragmented into partisans for Leni, Bongbong, and Ping because Isko positions himself as Visayan (Ilonggo father and Waray mother). Therefore, Isko and Pacman will have a tossup for the 22% from Mindanao and 19% from the Visayas. Voters segments by language spoken are: Tagalog, 42%; Cebuano, 21%; Ilonggo, 9%, Ilocano, 6%, Bicolano, 5%, Kapampangans, 5%, Waray, 4%; and others, 8%. Religion segments are: Catholic, 83%; Muslim; 4%, Iglesia; 3%; and others, 11%.

In campaigning, candidates should know this: 90% of all surveyed barangays have cellphone signals with one half of that with access to 4G (LTE) signals. Only 40% have TV and 13% have wi-fi connection. Radios are in 47% of the households and only 8.2% have landline phones. Around 24% of households have communal phones. Around 79 % of those surveyed use their cellphones each day and 33.9% use their computers. Around 46.88% of those surveyed use the internet and most of them use their cellphone to connect to the internet. In the last six years, the Philippines remains as the world’s number one user of social media. Each day, Filipinos, on average, spend four hours and 12 minutes on social media. This is much higher than the global average of two hours and 25 minutes.

So, the campaign for 2022 will be on Facebook, Twitter, Viber, YouTube, and other digital platforms, Marcos and Pacquiao have the advantage because of superior logistics. Next year's elections will be won via digital platforms. Mark my words.