Scapegoats

If you’re losing in the surveys, the pollsters must be lying. That’s the prevailing attitude among President Arroyo’s rivals, who seem to be doing everything lately – looking for scapegoats, finding alibis – anything except acknowledging lapses in their campaign and doing something about it.

I can understand the temptation of accusing reputable pollsters of rigging survey results. This is a land where almost everything is for sale, where many institutions have lost their credibility. Why should top pollsters Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia be any different?

Not surprisingly, the President’s rivals aren’t questioning the integrity of surveys taken by IBON Foundation, which isn’t even a professional pollster but a research organization. If opposition presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr. is Number One, the survey must be credible. Margin of error? What’s that?

If the President’s rivals truly want to boot her out of office, however, it would be prudent for them to take the survey results of SWS and Pulse Asia as accurate gauges of the public pulse, and plan their political moves accordingly. Over the years these two pollsters have developed proven track records in surveys, with SWS getting its figures right even in exit polls.

Surveys don’t come cheap, and these pollsters naturally make a lot of money during election periods. It’s their livelihood, their life. If they want to be in business for the long term, they won’t risk their credibility for any candidate in any electoral exercise by manipulating survey results. SWS head Mahar Mangahas won’t do it even for his first cousin FPJ; I don’t think Mangahas is going to do it for any other candidate.

Sure, Malacañang is capitalizing on the surveys to boost the President’s campaign, even throwing in a friendly survey or two conducted by relatively unknown organizations. Is that trending? If it is, it’s one set by independent survey firms, not by the administration. And Malacañang is gladly riding along.

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Some people have the impression that reputable pollsters conduct surveys the way college students take surveys for their thesis: you go to one neighborhood – a communist rebel hideout in the Bondoc peninsula, for example – distribute questionnaires with skewed questions and there’s your survey. If you need more respondents, you distribute more questionnaires to your neighbors. If respondents skip some questions, you fill in the blanks.

For a pollster to survive as long as SWS (and charge its steep rates), it needs to maintain a record of credibility. And for this to happen, it needs to have its survey results as accurate as possible.

To do this, you need a good grasp of statistics, for one. I’m talking about the subject you nearly flunked in college, together with all your other required lessons in mathematics. Yes, Juan, surveys involve arcane numerical equations. If you had to take college algebra twice, you probably flunked the equally esoteric statistics (or else you bribed the professor for a passing grade). You have to be in awe of number crunchers. Not very exciting types, but they adhere to certain rules to get accurate results.

A number of pollsters have manipulated results to please their clients. They are quickly found out and they have a short shelf life. Several of them are no longer around in this election period.

So far, SWS has had the best track record among the pollsters in this country. Pulse Asia managed to survive initial assaults on its credibility, a period when it was referred to as False Asia. Instead of denigrating the surveys of these two pollsters, President Arroyo’s rivals should see where they have gone wrong and scramble to correct their mistakes.

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For one, evangelist Eddie Villanueva may want to move his rally tomorrow from crowded Makati to some other venue where he won’t make a nuisance of himself. We don’t need convincing about "Brother" Eddie’s crowd-drawing power; we see that regularly at the prayer rallies of his Jesus is Lord Movement. Those JIL rallies create monstrous traffic jams in Manila when held in Rizal Park. Think of the chaos in the heart of Makati on a Thursday afternoon. Every non-member of JIL who gets stuck in traffic or gets inconvenienced in any way by that rally will surely NOT vote for Bro. Eddie.

For another, the two opposition presidential candidates may still want to unite. You don’t need a good grasp of statistics to predict that no matter who gives way and supports the other in the opposition, the common standard-bearer will rise in the surveys and will have a good chance of overtaking candidate Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

If unity is impossible – which is what it looks like at this point – Fernando Poe Jr. may want to take stock of what’s wrong with his campaign, why he’s self-destructing. There are so many factors they could make his head spin, if it isn’t constantly spinning already.

Once those factors are pinpointed, they should be dealt with quickly. Sen. Panfilo Lacson should do the same for his campaign. It would be foolish to make reputable pollsters scapegoats for defeat.

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HAPPY HOUR: At least one women’s group thanked Destileria Limtuaco for finally pulling out its "kinse anyos" advertisements. I’m not sure though that the gratitude is deserved. It looks like the contract for the ads simply lapsed; the distillery had all of two months to display the offensive advertisements. And if you think the Limpe clan, which owns Limtuaco, is contrite, take a look at the new ads declaring, "Natikman na nila (They’ve tasted it)!" That’s triumph, not contrition. It’s happy hour for Limtuaco.

The SLG (Sinson Lascano Group) advertising agency, which concocted the kinse anyos gimmick, must be raking it in from Limtuaco. No contrition there, either.

Meanwhile, what has happened to the case filed by Gabriela against the Limpe clan and SLG? It was supposed to be a test case for the new law against child exploitation. Will it take the Department of Justice 15 years to resolve this case?

Some judges have been overheard saying that they will immediately throw out the case if it lands in their courtroom. They must be sleazebags aged 70 hallucinating about being 17 and running after 15-year-olds.