Cayetano should be up, Enrile should be down: Was StratPOLLS not truthful?

Analysis by MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

In the February 4-12, 2013 senatorial poll conducted by StratPOLLS, it published  its findings on its affiliate newspaper Business Week.

It said there the top 12 candidates were:

 1 Sen. Loren Legarda (NPC)

 2 Sen. Francis Escudero (Independent)

 3 Sen Koko Pimentel (PDP Laban)

 4 Cong. Sonny Angara (LDP)

 5 Cong. JV Ejercito (UNA)

 6 Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano (Nacionalista Party)

 7-8 Cong. Jack Enrile (NPC)

 7-8  Cynthia Villar (Nacionalista Party)

 9 Sen. Gregorio Honasan(UNA)

10 Cong. Nancy Binay (UNA)

11 Former. Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri (UNA)

 12 Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV (Nacionalista Party).

 My already long face dropped further after browsing its findings.

 How could re-electionist senator Cayetano dropped from No.3  (January SWS's poll) to No.6 (StratPOLLs) when he should be up after people empathized with him with his calm tact in dealing with the classless gutter verbal attack of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile Sr. that was seen on national TV late of January this year by the whole nation?

To rephrase Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities:

That was the best of Cayetano that was the worst of Enrile.

So how could StratPOLLs explain why Enrile's son Jack eclipsed to Nos.7-8 from his No. 8-9 in the January Social Weather Stations poll when he should be sliding to the lower notches after his namesake Enrile Sr. put a noose on his neck and hanged himself on that fateful encounter with Cayetano?

Fortunately three days later SWS published its top 12 senatorial wannabe that "exorcised" the earlier findings of StratPOLLs.

They are the following:

 No.1 Legarda, chosen by 64% of registered voters polled

 No.2 Escudero , with 62% of intended votes

 No.3 Cayetano , with 58% of intended votes

No. 4 Villar rose from a tied 8-9th place before to solo 4th place now, with intended votes up by 7 points from 46% to 53%’

 Nos. 5 and 6 are Poe and Pimentel III, both with 48% of intended votes

 No.7Binay with intended votes up by 4 points from 43% to 47%.

No. 8 Trillanes IV with intended votes up by 1 point from 45% to 46%

 Nos 9 to 10 Ejercito and Aquino

 Nos. 11 to 12 Angara and Zubiri.

 As you see Cayetano remained at No. 3, the same notch he got in the January survey while Enrile and Honasan (Enrile’s blind factotum since their coups’ d’ tat days plunged to Numbers 13 and 15 from their Numbers 8-9 and Numbers 5-6 in January.

 How did StratPOLLS arrive on their suspicious polls?

 According to its website, it asked 300 respondents (unlike SWS and Pulse Asia’s 1,200 randomly selected respondents from the workers, students, farmers, and others of voting age) that represent the social sectors of the country.

 I fell from my chair again when StratPOLLS explained that it got its data from the 18 years old respondents who hailed mostly from the middle class of the Philippine Society.

Jesus Christ, from the middle class? When did it become that the middle class become the sole target of the sampling. Most Filipino voters - the Unwashed of the Society - abound in the lower class.
“Margin of error: For results based on 300 respondents, one can say with 98% confidence that the maximum margin of error (MOE) is 3.5 percentages plus or minus points,” its website says

Social Weather Stations Poll Chart

Why StratPOLLS did not emulate SWS with its 1,200 respondents?

 SWS’s survey background says: “The February 2013 Pre-Election Survey was conducted from February 15-17, 2013 using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 registered voters divided into random samples of 300 each in Metro Manila, Balance of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao (sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages, ±6% for area percentages).

The February 2013 Pre-Election Survey was not commissioned, and was done on SWS's own initiative.

 The national status on the choice of Senatorial candidates is released as a public service, with exclusive first-print right assigned to BusinessWorld”

In case Pulse Asia releases its latest survey soon and jibe with the last poll of SWS, malaking problema iyan kay (it is a big problem for the credibility of) StratPOLLs.

 (You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com).