MANILA - Former senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. kept his lead in the latest Pulse Asia survey on preferred presidential candidates after capturing "the imagination of a good percentage of our voters," a Pulse Asia official said Tuesday.

In the survey conducted Feb. 18 to 23, Marcos got the vote of 60 percent of 2,400 adult respondents.

• Bongbong, Sara lead Pulse Asia's Feb. 2022 poll for May's presidential, VP race

This is the "first time" that Pulse Asia has seen a "majority percentage selecting one candidate," according to its executive director Ana Tabunda.

"Obviously he has captured the imagination of a good percentage of our voters. Also he has more than adequate resources to sustain his presence in social media, his caravans, his campaign," she told ANC's Headstart.

"Plus his name of course and the association with his father has definitely benefited him from that."

Marcos' lead over other candidates was "more than double" President Rodrigo Duterte's lead over Senator Grace Poe in 2016, according to Tabunda. The highest that Duterte got in a Pulse Asia survey was 39.4 percent over Poe's 21.8 percent in April 2016, she said.

Vice President Leni Robredo was backed by 15 percent of likely voters, placing second in the latest survey, followed by Manila Mayor Isko Moreno Domagoso at 10 percent, and Senators Emmanuel "Manny" Pacquiao and Panfilo Lacson at 8 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

The survey "captures" the so-called "Solid North" while Robredo got majority of her likely voters in her home region Bicol, Tabunda said.

Domagoso, at his best, captured the support of 20 percent of likely voters in Calabarzon and 22 percent in Mimaropa, Tabunda added.

"The increase of 2 percentage points over January is not significant so essentially he stayed at the same level. We don’t see an increasing trend," she said.

The February survey is essentially "the same numbers we saw in January", according to Tabunda.

"Statistically speaking if they are only 5 percentage points away from him...that would be easier to overtake him. It’s not impossible but the probability is not large. The probability of that happening is not large," she said.

"If he drops 20 points the others will get those 20 points so they will have a better chance."

Pulse Asia has never been wrong in predicting the next president, Tabunda said.

Asked about criticisms against Pulse Asia, she said: "We’re aware of that. We sort of expect that reaction. We will just continue to produce our results because we stand by our data and our methodology."

The pollster was unable to sample classes A and B in the recent survey, Tabunda said.

"If we were able to sample some of them they may have refused," she said. "We do not intentionally exclude AB, we’re just unable to capture them."

Class C is more dominant in class ABC, she added.

"There are about 10 percent of the voters in class ABC, and about 70 percent to 75 percent in about class D. In class E that would be 15-20 percent," she said.

Watch more in iWantv or TFC.tv