Presidential candidate Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro Jr. is no doubt the youths’ consistent top choice to become the nation’s next chief executive.

The latest campus mock presidential election, conducted at the Holy Angels University in Angeles City in Pampanga, the Lakas-Kampi CMD standard-bearer easily topped the voting among 3,688 students who took part in program organized by the university student council.

Teodoro netted 1,432 ballots (38.829 percent), outscoring Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, who hails from Central Luzon like Teodoro, by almost 2-1. Aquino, of the Liberal Party, received 958 votes (25.976 percent), followed by Sen. Manny Villar with 954 (25. 868 percent) and former president Joseph “Erap” Ejercito Estrada with 39 (1.057 percent).

Student Council officials said Teodoro was the runaway winner in the mock polls because majority of students believe he has a clear-cut program of government and has pledged to focus his presidency on healing political divisions in the country.

This is a voting trend among the youth who see in Gibo the personification of what they wish for this country to become,” said Lakas-Kampi CMD president and Sarangani Gov. Migz Dominguez.

“To the youth, Gibo is tops in intelligence, leadership excellence and the quality and vision of his program of government for our people,” Dominguez added.

The mock election was held a few days after Teodoro’s campus visit at Holy Angels University, where thousands of students gave him a thunderous ovation after he squarely answered issues from his program to develop the rural areas to whether his sense of “utang na loob” to President Arroyo would make him politically subservient to her.

“Once you get elected to the presidency, no one can impose on you,” Teodoro said. “I will not be running for president if I were only to be a puppet, it is not worth my family’s reputation to do so.”

Teodoro said that the concept of “utang na loob”— so ingrained in Filipinos’ social values — demands one to give back good for the good given by the other. “Anything exceeding that is enslavement, and I am not a slave to anyone,” Teodoro told students.

Students proved receptive to Teodoro’s call for them to choose wisely in the May 10 elections by voting based not on a candidate’s popularity but on his leadership and competence to manage and direct the affairs of the country.

“Being popular does not mean that someone is automatically fit to lead a nation,” Teodoro said.

Voters, he said, must also consider whether he or she has the “intellectual skill or experience needed for the job,” adding that leadership “is not a position but a job.”