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[av_heading heading=’The surveys are obviously unbelievable ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
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January 11, 2018
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“REPEAT a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” is a quotation attributed to Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister in Nazi Germany. In other words, a persistent lie is still a lie that achieves an “illusion of truth.”
This reminds us of the frequent surveys dished out by two pollsters that the late Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago warned us against for being “commercial” or paid to prefabricate a desired result.
What for are the surveys done by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia showing President Rodrigo Duterte “loved” by 80 percent of the Filipinos? To impress us into believing that whatever the President does – despite extrajudicial killings and the law imposing higher taxes – the public swallows hook, line and sinker?
Take note of the December 2017 Pulse Asia survey where Duterte remains the most trusted government official with overall approval rating of 80 percent and trust rating of 82 percent. Simply put, eight out of 10 Filipinos adore him.
The same survey shows Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo lagging far behind with 59 percent approval rating and 58 percent trust rating. Senate President Aquilino Pimentel scored 57 percent and 53 percent approval and trust ratings, respectively while Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez got 42 percent and 37 percent, respectively.
Poor Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, who is now being impeached in the House of Representatives. She was rated K (kawawa) with only 26 percent approval and 33 percent trust ratings.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque gobbled that survey as evidence that “our people are aware of and recognize the significant strides that the President undertook in his one year and a half in office.”
On the other hand, SWS’ 4th quarter (2017) showed Duterte with a “very good net satisfaction rating, what with 71 percent of adult Filipinos satisfied with his performance, 13 percent dissatisfied and 15 percent were undecided.
It’s impossible for the public to know how these two pollsters differentiate approval, trust and satisfaction ratings of unknown “face-to-face” survey respondents.
Another survey done in November 2017 kuno compared Duterte to his predecessors Benigno Aquino III, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and Joseph Estrada. Pulse Asia lauded Duterte for breaching the 90 percent approval rating, getting 91 percent as maximum. Aquino came in second place with 80 percent; Estrada, third with 74 percent; and Arroyo, fourth with 63 percent.
Why do SWS and Pulse Asia want us to believe their “scientific surveys” indicating that 70 percent to 80 percent of the 105 million Filipinos idolize Duterte when all they did, if at all, was interview 1,200 respondents only? That’s not even one interviewee per each of the 42,036 barangays! I have searched but found none of these supposed respondents.
Wittingly or unwittingly, even the mainstream media have legitimized the surveys, airing and publishing them as if they were unedited paid ads?
In the past, SWS and Pulse Asia were not keen on popularity ratings of politicians – except during months preceding an election when they would ask candidates to “sponsor” a survey. Naturally, in the hope of generating mind-conditioning bandwagon propaganda, they would “sponsor.”
Remember how these pollsters “sold” first-time candidate Nancy Binay for senator in 2013? It was Toby Tiangco, then a congressman and spokesman of the United Nationalist Alliance, (UNA) who revealed that his party was paying P1-million “subscription” for each of the done surveys (November 2012, January, February, March and April 2013). The last survey ranked her No. 5; and she placed 5th in the actual election indeed.
If Duterte were not keen on perpetuating himself in power through the loyalty of his lapdogs in the military and the legislators who would frame a new Constitution creating a federal form of government, why would SWS and Pulse Asia extol him? (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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