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BY HERBERT VEGO
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For whom do the pollsters work?
IT BOGGLES the mind that big-time commercial pollsters like the Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia behave as if it’s campaign period once more for the next presidential election. The irony, however, is that the person they extol for being numero uno is no longer a candidate but already President, Rodrigo Duterte.
You must have read the slanted lead of one such story a few days ago: “President Rodrigo R. Duterte is the most appreciated government official, results of a survey by Pulse Asia showed.”
It went on to say that with an approval rating of 82 percent, Duterte scored the highest among top government officials covered by the survey.
The same story ended with these words: “The survey was conducted on June 24 to 29, a month after Duterte declared martial law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Mindanao.”
I would not belabor anymore the lower rating percentages of other national government officials. Suffice it to say that their comparatively low ratings convey a subliminal message they are “nobodies” when compared to one whom 82 percent of the Philippine population idolize come hell or high water – despite all the cusses and curses he rants against anybody but himself. Can we believe that?
I guess that in their next surveys, the pollsters would announce that the majority of Filipinos would want a five-month extension of martial law as Duterte wishes. Only in the Philippines!
Have we forgotten the “Never again!” shouts of victims of Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law?
No one benefits from SWS’ and Pulse Asia’s “ego massage” except the President who knows that the higher his trust, satisfaction and approval ratings go up, the stronger he becomes over other politicians. You see, most of the latter are now afraid to criticize him for fear of losing in the next elections.
Why do legitimate mainstream broadcast and print media announce the survey results as gospel truth? Are they disguised ads aimed at building a Digong Duterte cult?
Any perceptive mind ought to doubt the credibility of surveys that tend to exalt a political cult. Even on the presumption that the repetitious surveys with “± 3 percent margin of error” kuno are well-done, how could a sampling of 1,200 respondents remotely reflect the opinion of more than 100 million Filipinos?
Who are these 1,200 respondents? Since we don’t have the flimsiest clue on who these faceless people are, they must have materialized out of thin air. I, and probably you, have yet to meet anybody who has answered a question by either SWS or Pulse Asia.
The pollsters must have been fooling us willing fools all the time. They often do it with tricks that make their fiction come true. For instance, keeping Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on the lowest rung of the survey ladder could be believable because, by his own admission, he has sired eight children by different women.
So, for whom do the pollsters work? Your guess is as good as mine.
You see, SWS and Pulse Asia influence public opinion. Otherwise, why would their sponsors, euphemistically called “subscribers,” pay for their services?
The unwillingness of SWS and Pulse Asia to reveal the sponsors of their surveys mirror their fear of being found out. They have a similar excuse though: “confidentiality as stipulated in contract.”
When two pollsters post similar or near-similar results, they indeed look, in local lingo, kumbinsing! But it’s just another trick. The two pollsters are not really competitors. While they have different managements, some of their stock holders are the same persons, namely Felipe Miranda, Rosalinda T. Miranda, Gemino H. Abad and Mercedes R. Abad, among others. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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