IN A PAST column, this corner debunked a Pulse Asia survey alleging that if a senatorial race were held in the specified survey period (March 23-28, 2018), the re-electionist senators would surely win, as well as Davao City mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, Serge Osmeña, Erwin Tulfo, Lito Lapid and Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.
Since the aforementioned senatorial aspirants have yet to file their certificates of candidacy come October, we questioned the motive behind the “non-commissioned” survey. Was it to jump-start a bandwagon?
Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations (SWS) have been so adept at their game that they could always wiggle out of difficult situations, as when Sen. Antonio Trillanes questioned their discrepancy in rating President Duterte. Pulse Asia had credited him with an “approval rating” of 88 percent and “trust rating” of 87 percent whereas, for SWS, it was a much lower “net satisfaction rating” of 45 percent.
Rebutting Trillanes’ presumption that survey respondents were residents of Davao City, Pulse Asia’s research director Ana Maria Tabunda reacted, “Only 70 of 430 respondents in Mindanao are from Davao City.”
Her other “justification” is that they at Pulse Asia had done face-to-face survey with respondents on June 15 to 21, which was just before the President called the Christian God “stupid” in Davao City on June 22, thus earning the knee-jerk reaction of Roman Catholics, while SWS did it on June 27 to 30.
Sad to say, most print and broadcast utilities purvey survey results unquestionably due to mere perception that their surveys are “scientific.”
If, as insinuated above, Pulse Asia was bootlicking Duterte, why did it later declassify another survey unpleasant to his ears? The survey said that 73 percent of respondents were disgruntled over government’s inaction over the decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague affirming that the islands in the West Philippine Sea belong to the Philippines, not China.
Had Pulse Asia reversed its finding, it would have meant denying the obvious.
Which leads us to another question: If most of us disagree with the President on such a crucial matter, why did 88 percent of Pulse Asia respondents reward him with 88 percent approval rating and 87 percent trust rating? Confusing!
By the way, I wonder how respondents distinguish the difference between the words “approval” and “trust.” When you trust somebody, don’t you approve of him as well?
Now, why am I cautious of trash thrust to us by Pulse Asia and SWS?
Both SWS and Pulse Asia go by a standard sampling of unverifiable 1,200 respondents nationwide. Since it is an insignificant 0.22 percent of 55 million registered voters, how could respondents for or against a person or issue represent percentages of the whole voting population? No wonder you and I have never been counted.
The sample size is divided among four major areas in the country: Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The 300 respondents per major area come from 60 barangays. Unfortunately, we have no way of confirming whether they are warm-blooded men or ghosts.
Every survey costs money allegedly paid by “subscribers”. Alas, however, Pulse Asia and SWS would not release details on them.
And so sometime in 2013, the political party United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to compel the two pollsters to reveal the names of all “commissioners, subscribers, and payors of surveys published from February 12, 2013 to April 23, 2013” but to no avail.
UNA spokesman Toby Tiangco eventually revealed that they had paid the pollsters P1.9 million per survey that placed its candidate Nancy Binay within the top five senatorial candidates, which turned out to be prophetic.
Common sense dictates, according to the late senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, that we junk political surveys. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
