Surveys at Facebook, Radio not Credible

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I was amused hearing two radio reporters of a premier radio station talking about two candidates for a higher office. These duo ingratiate with their favorite politicos because they have a 15 percent commission on the air time fee they exact from any one of them.

Reporter 1: Noong sinabi ko na hindi na kukuha si ____ ng air time napailing iyong P.R man ng kalaban. Sinabi niya sa akin: “Akala ko madami pera iyong kabilang partido. Naka prepara na ang missile namin, kwitis lang pala ang kaya”.

I blurted with a guffaw.

This radio station bills very expensively a buyer of its air time.

***

A seasoned politiko who was with us said that despite the projects an elective public official had given to his constituents he should have wherewithal to buy votes because voters who belong to the C-D-E Classes are apathetic about  the countless projects he gave but will vote for a candidate because of his money.

“I could afford to buy even with three waves for one thousand pesos for each of the voters,” he quipped.

He cited that a few days before the election he will test if the opponent could reciprocate his one thousand pesos.

“If my opponent could not do a financial tit –for-tat, I’ll forego the last two waves”.

Who said, son of a gun, that election is a cake walk? Winning it is not for the faint heart. One needs to spend tens if not hundred of millions of pesos in a position that gives only a PhP100, 000 monthly pay and emoluments.

***

Many politicians and media practitioners mistook the surveys being done at Facebook or phone patches by radio anchormen about how many voters will vote for a certain bet and his opponent as "Gospel Truth".

These surveys, that even senatorial bets PR crowed publicly, were not credible.

How can you say your candidate for a particular elective position be it national or local wins when members of the popular social media founded and run by the group of Mark Zuckerberg did not represent the electorates?

Paano naman iyong mga farmers, jeepney drivers, and even those members of the millennial (22 to 37 years old) and the post-millennial (0 to 21 years old) who did not have Facebook account at their android mobile phones?

Besides, FB accounts can be manipulated by candidates who can commission people to make more fake accounts and joined the survey.

Same too with those done by radio stations be it FM or AM.

The most credible polls to gauge the sentiment of the voters are those scientific surveys done by Rasmussen Reports and Gallup Polls in the U.S and the Social Weather Station and Pulse Asia in the Philippines.

There are provincial pollsters I know who cut their teeth on the trade by predicting the result of the election two weeks before the voters cast their ballots or the Commission of Election declared the winners.

That was what we called “credibility” of their craft.

“Paano naman maging accurate iyang SWS and Pulse Asia e 1,200 or 1, 500 respondents all over the country ang sample nila e almost 64 million ang voters?” I heard this common poser from skeptics.

“Paano mo naman masabi iyong isang kawang suman na niluluto ng dalawang mama’ ay mapakla o matamis e isang kutsara lang ang pinagsample mo na ginamit pang tikim?” my question to them, too.

Usually these pollsters use Random Sampling. 

“With a total universe or sampling frame of 1,500 respondents of voting age as distributed on weighted averages on the target area. The poll was conducted on a Confidence Level of 98 percent on the overall design with an error margin of 2.8 percent on the overall landscape/level and 3-5 percentage points on the local application at the city/municipal level,” a pollster told me before.

***

Here's my take to the other critics of some surveys that say Candidate A trail blazed Candidate B by miles because he paid millions of pesos the pollster who commissioned a survey for him.

“Kung si Candidate B ang nag commission niyan, siya ang nag trail blaze kay Bet A,” some usual response to those who did not understand or to those PR guys who want to pooh-pooh the "devastating" result that “chop” the head of their patron more than two months before the election.

I told them they were wrong. Pollster ask candidates to pay for the survey because the result will be their guide to re-strategize two months before the D-Day.

Kung kulelat, dagdagan ang ikot. Kung kelangan magpakawala ng milyon milyon piso sa ads dapat magpakawala, kung may pera pa matutong bumili ng mga leaders at boto to thwart the naked truth of the polls about the candidate, o kung kelangan pumunta sa Maynila at magsumbong ng mga alleged krimen at kuropsiyon sa national TV stations or sa Senado para may masisira at may gumuapo, dapat gawin, someone said.

“That’s plain stupidity to say kung kayo ang nagbayad kayo ang panalo. E paano naman ang kredibilidad ng pollster pag iyong result ng survey niya baliktad. Iyong nanalo sa polls niya iyon ang natalo e di apektado ang credibility ng racket niya. Sa next 2022 election wala ng magpapa survey sa kanya. Good bye iyong million pesos na kita niya,” I told some critics who did not know about this sampling marvel.

If the 1,200 or 1,500 respondents say of an exit poll did not represent the almost 64 million voters in the country, why all the presidential and senatorial bets SWS and Pulse Asia ranked in their result were the same in the actual counting of the Comelec?
Because, salamabit, there was an effing science on it!

The only exception as far as I remembered were names like Enrile (1995 election), Zubiri (2007 election), and others who were not part of the Magic 12 of these two famous poll outfits in the exit poll who came out victorious.

The ugly reason behind? Election counting then were done manually and the insidious from either of these candidates surreptitiously sneaked thousands of fake votes in their favor because of “Dagdag-Bawas" (add and subtract machination).
Now you got it?!

READ MY OTHER ARTICLE:

       Pulse Asia is more credible than Social Weather Station

(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)