SURVEYS AND DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

“The dirty little secret of… surveys is – they are largely junk science placing marketing objectives of telling and selling a good story, above the practical and ethical objective of telling the truth… Often statistical methods are misused corrupting survey results while providing an air of scientific legitimacy…” (Excerpted from the article “Surveys and Dirty Little Secret; Hidden Distortion, Bias – Illusion of Scientific Validity: Business Beware”)

SURVEY DISCREPANCY

SWS Survey 1. Fourth Quarter 2021: 75% of Filipinos said they were satisfied with PRRD’s performance.

SWS Survey 2. Second Quarter 2021 SWS Survey: 77% of Filipinos feel poor including borderline poor.

SWS Survey 3. Second Quarter 2020 SWS Survey: 83% of Filipinos said their quality of life has worsened in the last 12 months.

At a glance, we can figure out 1 contradicts 2 & 3. This telling discrepancy happened before.

Headline 1: Women in the Philippines Have Had Enough of PRRD’s Macho’ Leadership

“Since taking office in June 2016, the 73-year old leader has ordered soldiers to shoot female rebels in the vagina, made inappropriate comments about his female Vice President’s legs, joked about raping Miss Universe, and equated having a second wife to keeping a ‘spare tire’ in the trunk of a car.”

Headline 2: Gabriela blames Duterte’s “misogyny” for “culture of rape” in PNP.

“[A] Manila police officer allegedly raped the 15-year-old daughter of a drug suspect to clear her father from drug allegations.”

Palace: PRRD’s “very good” rating shows “unshakable trust.”

“PRRD was rated ‘excellent’ in… promoting women’s rights…”

GLOBAL INDEXES

Let’s put in far-reaching global indexes:

1. Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perception Index. PH scored 33 out of 100, the same as the average score of Sub-Saharan Africa, and below the world average of 44. Exhibit A. Pharmally scandal. Exhibit B. Malampaya deal

2. World Justice Project’s Rule of Law, PH scored 0.46 (1 is best), ranked 102nd out of 139 countries, 13^th out of 15 in the region.

3. Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index. PH ranked 16^th out of 26 countries, the lowest comprehensive power among the ASEAN-5.

PUNDITS’ VIEWS

Let’s tag on views of Philstar columnist Alex Magno:

“The nation was plunged into its deepest recession in 2020… we had to borrow substantial amounts to cover our spending needs, raising our debt stock in the process. Our economic recovery has been in fits and starts…Things have been difficult for our people for the last two years. Unemployment and poverty rates spiked…”

“Duterte has been caricatured in the international press as some sort of mass murderer for the casualties incurred in the course of the war on drugs. A case was brought against him at the International Criminal Court.”

“The President’s handling of the complicated situation in the South China Sea… paint him a Beijing puppet unwilling to defend what we think is our territory.”

The Manila Times columnist Lito Monico C. Lorenzana’s banner speaks volumes:

“The Unravelling of the Duterte Legacy – Corruption.”

His teasing chaser on the Pharmally scandal gave away the whole shebang and left nothing to our imagination.

“[I]t seems obvious who the capo di tutti capi is – the Godfather of them all. But didn’t we know this from the start?”

GLOBAL VIEWS

The global views have been piercing like a two-edged sword as indicated by Time Magazine’s banner flashed all over the world when PRRD’s was elected as President: “Why Did the Philippines Just Elect a Guy Who Jokes About Rape as Its President?”

The New York Times bannered PRRD’s Most Contentious Quotations ranging from “Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now, there are three million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them” to “Son of a whore. I will curse you (President Obama) in the forum.”

DISSERVICE TO FILIPINOS

Anyone reading all of the above PRRD’s gross deficits (from minor GMRC to major performance-based aspects of his presidency) and to learn that SWS has attributed the opinions of 1,440 survey respondents (for being satisfied with PRRD’s performance) to the overall opinions of 75% of all Filipinos across the country could not help himself or herself to think that the extrapolated equivalence is tantamount to downgrading the Filipino intelligence and diminishing their self-respect, let alone, doing a great disservice to Filipino stature in the eyes of the world.

The SWS spokesperson ascribed PRRD’s ratings to diligence and decisiveness – given basics to the sum total of leadership -- while pundits and operatives exclaiming PRRD’s defying feat as “Phenomenal” or “Amazing” is  sycophantic. Predictably, SWS would never explain the root of the contradiction -- the so-called “survey’s dirty little secret.”

FEAR FACTOR

“Interviews are conducted face-to-face. The respondent’s name and address are known to the interviewer. The interviewer’s true purpose may be suspect to the respondent,” one pundit explained.

In view of such reality, most Filipinos today, due to PRRD’S culture of fear spawned by his brutal war on drugs, would be thinking twice in participating in surveys – a “bystander apathy” phenomenon. Not only fearful, but they are also “demotivated and lacking enthusiasm… just don’t care enough…they don’t care that they don’t care” Leon F. Seltzer Ph.D. of Psychology Today said on such human behavior. The culprit in the latest two successive US presidential election poll failures is “nonresponse bias” generated by an “unrepresentative sample” – a flawed survey condition – the same flaw our local election surveys have languished.

The net effect: PRRD’s high rating implies he is feared, not endeared. That fits PRRD’s game plan like a glove. The somber exchange between PRRD and Maria Ressa during a particular interview vouched for it.

Maria Ressa (MR): Violence and you say this you know violence is okay. Is it necessary to lead?

PRRD: Violence is my strength…until the last dragon is killed, this campaign will continue to the very last day of my term.

MR: Is it important that people be afraid of you?

PRRD: Fear…There must be fear.

LAST DAYS: WANING OF POWER AND FEAR

Being feared and not endeared -- explains PRRD’s Go and Bato endorsement flops. Only when one truly loves, trusts and believes PRRD will he or she says “yes” to anyone, I repeat, to anyone, that PRRD endorses for the presidency. Hardly ever would one bow to such endorsement out of fear, hence the endorsement flops. The same truism brings into play in his bullying flounder of Marcos Jr. as a “cocaine user.”

No doubt, as president, PRRD has the political power – the capacity to coerce others, overtly or covertly, to do his will. But, such power resides in his position, not in his person, and is not related to innate goodness and wisdom. When PRRD starts leaving his position, his power (and the accompanying fear) would start to wane, hence, the reason for the gradual downward trend of his rating.

Driving home the essence of this article, let me conclude with an ironic cartoon. One pollster, looking at his computer screen, says to one officemate looking over his shoulder

“This is interesting. 70% of the respondents to our survey said they don’t respond to surveys.”