MANILA - Philippine fund managers informally backed Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino on Wednesday to win the presidential election next May, and said his running mate Senator Manuel "Mar" Roxas would be elected vice-president.

A straw poll at a regular meeting of the Fund Managers Association of the Philippines (FMAP) showed 40 of 54 votes for Aquino and 33 of 48 for Roxas.

Political analysts who addressed the FMAP meeting also largely agreed with the showing.

"Noynoy-Mar is the projection of most experts as of today," said Antonio Gatmaitan, president of the Political-Economy Applied Research Foundation.

Gatmaitan said other candidates were likely to be Senator Manuel Villar, Senator Francis Escudero, former President Joseph Estrada and Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, with Estrada likely to be disqualified because he has already won an election for president.

Nominations for the elections close on Nov. 30, with campaigning scheduled to officially start in February.

Roxas had earlier planned to run for president before deciding to make way for Aquino and was seen at the time as a favourite of the business community. He has been Trade Secretary and was an investment banker in New York before joining politics.

Ronald Holmes, president of pollster Pulse Asia Inc, said there was a long way to go before the elections.

"I would not agree that the elections are over," he said. But he added: "If elections are held now, Noynoy cannot be beaten."

Aquino, the son of beloved former president Cory Aquino, decided only three weeks ago to run. His mother died last month and hundreds of thousands of people poured out on the streets for her funeral on Aug. 5.

"The Aug. 5 phenomenon created the Noynoy phenomenon," said columnist Conrado de Quiros, who has openly declared his support for Aquino. "The phenomenon happened and Noynoy was a beneficiary of that."

The only opinion poll of likely candidates that has included Aquino was conducted in the northern region of Luzon and showed him winning 50 percent of the vote. Villar was second with 14 percent and Estrada third with 13 percent. (Read: 50% prefer Noynoy in vote-rich Luzon areas: SWS )

Previous polls did not have any clear winner, although Villar was on top of most of them.

The analysts, however, also warned about cheating at the polls and whether automated voting, being introduced for the first time in a national election, could prove to be a factor.

Aquino, in an interview with Reuters last week, also expressed concern about cheating, and about his own personal safety.