Lacson’s camp claims surveys ‘massaged’ to favor Arroyo

The camp of opposition presidential hopeful Sen. Panfilo Lacson accused Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia yesterday of "massaging" their surveys to favor President Arroyo.

Lito Banayo, Lacson’s spokesman and political strategist, made the accusation after three witnesses spoke in a press conference about how the poll-taking groups were allegedly manipulating their surveys.

"Based on these testimonies, it is clear that the pollsters are massaging or manipulating their polls to create a bandwagon effect for Mrs. Arroyo," he said.

House Minority Leader Carlos Padilla, Lacson’s lone senatorial candidate, said aside from the witnesses, the camp of evangelist Eddie Villanueva is documenting cases of manipulation and would soon present its own findings to the media.

He said he was informed of this by Jovy Garalaga, vice president of Villanueva’s Bangon Pilipinas Movement.

SWS and Pulse Asia have denied massaging or changing in any way the results of their surveys.

The survey respondent-witnesses who spoke in the news conference arranged by Lacson’s camp were Jambe Matugas, a Cebu City businessman, and spouses Terry and Evangeline Lim of San Juan, Metro Manila.

In a sworn statement, 25-year-old Matugas said he was at a coffee shop at the Ayala Center in Cebu City last April 1 when "one fair-looking woman in her mid-20s" approached him and introduced herself as a Pulse Asia surveyor.

"As I was given the Pulse Asia form to fill up, I noticed that there were only two presidential candidates listed as choices – President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Fernando Poe Jr.," he said.

He said his "personal choice," Lacson, was not in the list.

He recounted that he asked the unnamed woman why this was so and was told that those covered by the poll were only Mrs. Arroyo and Poe.

Matugas added that since he was limited to two choices, he checked the name of Poe.

He stressed that there was "apparently manipulation" in Pulse Asia’s April survey.

For their part, the Lim spouses, who are Lacson fans, said they were forced to come out in the open in the wake of reports that they were not respondents in the SWS poll taken last Jan. 24.

Terry Lim said he was listed as the respondent although he and his wife both responded to questions asked by the interviewer, whom they identified as Jeana Tayag who even left her cellular phone number on a confirmation form she handed the couple.

He said Tayag told them that many of the survey respondents chose Lacson as the candidate they would vote for but that when the results came out, the frontrunners were Poe and Mrs. Arroyo.

In an earlier news conference, it was Lim’s wife who complained about alleged manipulation in the survey results. Yesterday, Evangeline Lim admitted it was her husband who was listed as respondent.

In a related development, Banayo said as of 3 p.m. yesterday, Lacson and Poe had not met and he doubted whether they could meet the rest of the afternoon until last night.

"Senator Lacson is awaiting word from Mr. Poe. He texted him a few days ago, as they had agreed, but FPJ has yet to respond," he said. — With Paolo Romero