A survey published Friday showed Philippine President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo's lead in the presidential campaign while other candidates are ready to counter-attack in the endgame.

The survey conducted from April 10 to 17 by the polling companySocial Weather Stations (SWS) showed that 35.3 percent of the respondents would support Arroyo.

Opposition presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr, who has beenleading the presidential campaign in past SWS surveys, fell behindArroyo with a supporting rate as 30.8 percent.

Former Education Secretary Raul Roco, who left for the United States last week to seek medical treatment, only got 8.4 percent, giving the third place to former Senator Panfilo Lacson with 10.6 percent.

However, undecided voters increase 3 percent and the survey hasa 3 percent margin of sampling error, which makes Arroyo's 4.5 percent lead slim, SWS said.

"She has all (the) government resources yet that's her lead over Poe," opposition senatorial candidate Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said.

Pimentel also said that Arroyo would benefit the most from Roco's exit from the campaign due to health reasons.

In the vice-presidential campaign, Senator Noli de Castro, Arroyo's running mate, still leads Poe's partner Loren Legarda with a narrowing gap.

Meanwhile, Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP), said that its standard bearer, Poe, has topped three separate surveys conducted from December, 2003 to April, showing an opposite in rankings of earlier surveys released by SWS and the other polling company Pulse Asia.

A survey conducted between March 27 and April 4 by Pulse Asia showed that some 34 percent of the 4,800 respondents chose Arroyo President, while 31 percent chose Poe, followed by Roco with 12 percent and Lacson with 10 percent.

The SWS found in last survey that Poe led the campaign with 32 percent of the votes while Arroyo was not far behind with 31.4 percent of the votes. Roco ranked the third with 15 percent and former senator Panfilo Lacson 11.2 percent.

Although Roco, as SWS said, "Lost 7 of his 15 points thus slipping to fourth in the race" due to his withdrawal from the campaign, will still "fight for victory" after he returns at the end of April, his campaign adviser Jaime Galvez-Tan told reporters.

"He's coming back for the campaign," Tan said after a telephoneconversation with Roco. "He's ready with body, mind and spirit."

In their phone conversation, Tan said Roco also directed him topress ahead with merger talks with another presidential candidate Bro. Eddie Villanueva as long as the agenda did not include Roco'swithdrawal from the presidential race.

So far, the two sides have agreed "in principle" to share manpower and machinery in the May 10 elections, Tan said.

Opposition presidential candidate Panfilo Lacson also said Thursday that he was still considering a possible "unified campaign" with Poe as part of the opposition's effort to thwart fraud and cheating in the May 10 elections.

Lacson reiterated that he was still open to holding talks with Poe on unification even up to May 9, the day before election.

Earlier reports said that Poe and Lacson are expected to unite as the only hope for opposition to win Arroyo in the elections, although the two had already agreed to meet twice, last- minute hitches forced them to cancel the meetings.

Source: Xinhua