“UP warning vs ‘kalye surveys’ recirculates online” – Philstar
The above headline tells of the warning of the University of the Philippines School of Statistics (UP STAT) against the proliferation of surveys with unclear methodologies circulating online amid the declaration of several personalities of their potential candidates in next year’s elections.
Let’s look at the published results of the monthly senatorial survey conducted by Tangere for February and make sense of the results where Former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (FPRRD) topped such a survey. Without doubt, such a survey result is at odds with the following headlines:
“More lawmakers reject ex-Pres. Duterte’s secession call” – Inquirer
“Duterte-appointed ex-AFP chief urges Filipinos: Reject calls for Mindanao secession” – Philstar
“53 Mindanawon lawmakers reject secession” – Sun Star
“Lawmakers, ex-Muslim rebels reject Duterte call for secession” – Inquirer
“Legal experts reject Duterte’s call for secession of Mindanao” – ANC
“Bangsamoro government rejects Duterte’s ‘Mindanao republic’ proposal” – ANC
“Duterte allies reject calls for separate Mindanao” – ANC
No less than the native of Mindanao’s Bukidnon province, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said, “I think right now the last thing that we want is for our country to be chaotic and divided.”
SECESSION – NOT THE ANSWER
“We affirm that secession is not the answer to Mindanao’s concern…” Maguindanao del Sur Gov. Bai Mariam Sangki Mangudadatu said. “In the spirit of peace and unity, we turn down any call or movement that aims to destabilize our government and eventually that would divide our nation…”
Even FPRRD’s allies, Sec. Carlito Galvez and Secretary Eduardo Año, his two former cabinet secretaries, strongly opposed the call to separate Mindanao from the rest of the country. “Any attempt to secede any part of the Philippines will be met by the government with resolute force,” Año warned.
Gleaned from the results of the survey against the grain of the headlines, it begs this commonsensical question: why do more than half of those surveyed prefer FPRRD, and would vote for him as a senator in 2025 election, despite his unwanted call for Mindanao secession, and subsequently rejected in all stretches of the political landscape?
Had the “disconnect” something to do with the mindset of the respondents or the methodology of the survey?
UP STAT called out “the pervasive abuse of survey methodologies by some entities doing their brand of research and promoting them on social media.” Though the warning has put its finger on kalye surveys being done by some vloggers and suspicious online outfits (notoriously perceived by their cavalier disregard for the principles of data gathering especially on X and Facebook), the major-league players are not exempted from such a red flag.
Exhibit A.
SWS Survey 1. Second Quarter 2020: 83% of Filipinos said their quality of life has worsened in the last 12 months.
SWS Survey 2. Second Quarter 2021: 77% of Filipinos feel poor including borderline poor.
SWS Survey 3. Fourth Quarter 2021: 75% of Filipinos said they were satisfied with PRRD’s performance.
At a glance, we can figure out surveys 1 & 2 contradict 3.
Exhibit B.
Headline 1: “Women in the Philippines Have Had Enough of PRRD’s Macho’ Leadership” – Time Magazine
“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” -- Inquirer
“[A] Manila police officer allegedly raped the 15-year-old daughter of a drug suspect to clear her father from drug allegations.”
Headlines 1 & 2 fly in the face of Malacañang Palace’s stance: “PRRD was rated ‘excellent’ in… promoting women’s rights…”
UP STAT also called out public relations companies, private individuals, and some media organizations that publish results of surveys with unclear methodologies.
NEWS OR PROPAGANDA?
Amid the 2022 presidential election campaign season, I wrote in my ATABAY article Election Survey Results: News or Propaganda? how Marcos Jr. has covered all the bases: election survey results, social media echo chambers, and the mainstream news media headlines as shown below:
“Marcos Jr. Leads Latest Pulse Asia Survey For Presidential Race” - Inquirer
“Pulse Asia: Marcos’ Lead Grows…” - Philstar
“Bongbong, Sara Keep Survey Lead” - Manila Times
“Sara Leads By A Mile For VP” - Manila Standard
“BBM, Sara Keep Pole Positions In Surveys” - Daily Tribune
“Are we supposed to accept the results of the survey as gospel truth? What if they are wrong?” asked Sen. Richard Gordon in his press conference during the 2010 election when he formally filed a case against SWS and Pulse Asia for frequently releasing pre-election survey results at that time, stressing that such surveys had robbed the people of their right to choose their leaders wisely.
The same questions are crucial today: What if these election surveys are wrong? More questions: Do the opinions of only 2,400 people represent the whole opinion of around 67 million voters spread throughout the land? Who checks the validity of these surveys? How reliable are they? Does anyone inspect and verify the election survey and the raw data as bases for its conclusion? Does anyone know who paid for the survey?
As to the last question, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Marvic Leonen in his decision in the case of Social Weather Station Inc. and Pulse Asia Inc. v Commission on Election [2015] GR No 208062, has resolved that all surveys published must be accompanied by all the information required in Republic Act No. 9006, or the Fair Election Act, including the NAMES OF COMMISSIONERS, PAYORS, AND SUBSCRIBERS (underscoring mine).
Do election survey results, when publicly published and grabbed headlines, shape the voters’ preference, hence, partaking of the nature of election propaganda? Justice Leonen stressed:
“The inclusion of election surveys in the list of items regulated by the Fair Election Act is a recognition that election surveys are not a mere descriptive aggregation of data. Publishing surveys are a means to shape the preference of voters, inform the strategy of campaign machinery, and ultimately, affect the outcome of elections.
“ELECTION SURVEYS HAVE A SIMILAR NATURE AS ELECTION PROPAGANDA (underscoring mine). They are expensive paid for by those interested in the outcome of elections, and have tremendous consequence on election results.”
Are election survey results accurate? I have two sources from which we may figure out an answer.
“Questions can be asked. Answers will be given and transformed into numbers. It’s seductive; it looks like science. But we now know that answers to questions about where people obtain their political information are so inaccurate as to be worthless.” (Mark Mellman, pollster and political consultant)
DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
“The dirty little secret of… survey 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)
In light of the polling and survey “black eye” worldwide, including the US 2016 & 2020 elections, uncompromising critics have propounded:
- polling or survey is irrevocably broken
- pollsters and polling purveyors should be ignored
In the US, Real Clear Politics, frequently cited by various media organizations, gets its average figure from the top 10 surveys among a horde of pollsters all over the US.
Here in PH, we put our whole eggs in one basket of a handful of kalye surveys. No wonder film director, screenwriter, and producer Darryl Yap conceded, “We are just stupid… I don’t care, I don’t get offended, I don’t get hurt, when people say, “O, nabudol ka.”
Head collage photos courtesy of Rappler & istockphoto
Video clips courtesy of YouTube
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