AGOO, La Union — Former Tubao town mayor Dante Sotelo Garcia has overtaken incumbent second district Rep. Sandra Eriguel in an independent survey taken a week before Monday’s polls.
Independent pollster Societas Studis said in a statement that Garcia, a veteran public servant since his younger years as a Sangguniang Kabataan leader, raised his trust rating among 3,000 randomly selected respondents in its April 29 to May 5 study.
Garcia, it said, had garnered overwhelming support “largely among younger voters,” including millennials and even a cross-section of sectors in the second district of La Union — but the survey group did not reveal its final numbers for the poll.
In the 2019 elections, Garcia placed second in a three-cornered fight against political heavyweights armed with hefty war chests and lingering name recall.
Societas Studis said Garcia’s “giant leap” to first place overtaking Eriguel in the pollster’s study a week before Monday’s elections is attributable to his “masa” appeal and “people-centered” priorities.
Among Garcia’s legislative programs is the improvement and harnessing of government medical facilities in La Union to cater to the poorest of the poor.
“Access to medical services of the greater majority needs much improvement,” he emphasized.
Garcia has started a medical access card that had enrolled over a hundred thousand beneficiaries that he dreams can render easy and fast access to free medical services in the province.
Such program, Societas Studis said, had “tremendously hiked” Garcia’s trust rating.