国际英语新闻：First automated polls open in Philippines

The latest survey conducted by Social Weather Station on May 2 and May 3 showed Liberal Party candidate Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III got a 42 percent preference rate, 22 percent ahead of former President Joseph Estrada, who got 20 percent.

A nother poll body Pulse Asia said four in every 10 Filipinos support Aquino III. His two major rivals Estrada and Manuel Villar Jr. had a supporting rate of 20 percent each.

The four top presidential candidates cast their votes in their respective hometown on Monday.

School teachers try to fix a Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) at a polling station in Tarlac province, in northern Philippines May 10, 2010. The Philippine's general election voting for the president, parliament and local leaders began at 36,679 polling stations all over the country at 7 a.m. Monday. More than 50 million Filipinos have been registered as voters this year, of whom, 85 percent said they would vote, according to the Election Commission (Comelec).

The Commission on Elections said 85 percent of the 50.7 million registered voters would turn out this year. They will elect the next president, vice president, 12 senators, 287 congressmen and more than 17,000 local officials.

Meanwhile, two violence incidents took place Monday morning. Three supporters of a mayoralty candidate were killed and five other were injured in an ambush in Zamboanga Sibugay in southern Philippines early Monday, the voting day of the country's first automated election, local media reported.

Xinhua also learned that one was killed in shooting in front of a candidate' house in Kidapawan in the province of Cotabato, also in the south.