Political Surveys, Cartelized?

By Herbert Vego 

CERTAINLY, you have heard of the oil cartel that fixes uniform prices of various brands of oil products.

But have you wondered whether there’s a cartel of political pollsters who come up with similar or near-similar “magic 12” frontliners in periodic surveys running up to May 12. 2025 senatorial race?

“Amazing” is an understatement to describe the faith of politicians in the surveys. Take for example party-list congressman Erwin Tulfo, who bragged in the radio program “Punto Asintado” that he ranks “No. 1” in eight senatorial surveys.

Oh, so there are now eight political survey firms? I can only name five: Social Weather Stations (SWS), Pulse Asia, Octa Research, Publicus Asia and WR Numero Research.

The rise in their number indicates profitability, though we are left in the dark as to how they earn from supposedly non-commissioned nationwide surveys.

Since published election surveys undoubtedly double as mind-conditioners to promote the top runners in the senatorial derby, who among the candidates would not want to “subscribe”?

The latest senatorial surveys done by SWS, Pulse Asia and Octa Research seem to indicate accuracy because they nearly synchronize. Ten out of 12 frontliners are in  the three surveys, namely Erwin Tulfo, Christopher “Bong” Go, Ben Tulfo, Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Tito Sotto, Abby Binay, Lito Lapid, Camille Villar, Manny Pacquiao, Pia Cayetano and Willie Revillame.

The last two slots do not reveal the same names. Re-electionist Imee Marcos is 12^th in the Octa list, but not in those of SWS and Pulse Asia.  Dela Rosa ranks 5^th in Pulse Asia, but does not show in the top 12 of Octa and SWS. Re-electionist Ping Lacson, the 6^th in SWS, is outside of  Octa’s and Pulse Asia’s 12 frontliners.

If these ten eventually win, it would serve as another “proof” of the surveys’ “credibility”.

In all three surveys, Erwin Tulfo and Bong Go share first and second places.

Assuming the surveys to be so accurate, what have these candidates done to win public approval?

Take for example Erwin Tulfo. Why is he “No 1” despite all the bad news about him? Remember that the Commission on Appointments bypassed his appointment as secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in December 2022 because of his alleged American citizenship and four libel convictions.

Has the Commission on Elections (Comelec) forgotten that under Article IX-B of the Philippine Constitution, candidates for public office must be natural-born citizens of the Philippines?

Kindly explain, Comelec chairman George Garcia.

How could the 1,200 to 2,400 alleged survey respondents remotely echo the voice of 67.5 million Filipino voters?

Alas, even some of us in the media refer to the surveys as trend indicators.

Anyway, these repeated surveys showcasing the same winning names remind us of the famous 1941 quotation from Joseph Goebbels, chief propagandist of Adolf Hitler: “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”

If the ten aforementioned leading candidates eventually win, it would serve as another “proof” of the surveys’ “credibility”.

Meanwhile, let us walk through the May 2022 presidential election, where the then “uniteam” of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte won the presidency and vice-presidency, respectively, giving Marcos 31,629,783 votes; Duterte, a bigger 32,208,417 votes.

The surveys had predicted a close fight between Marcos and Leni Robredo for president.

The then incumbent VP Leni, however, lost with only 14.7 million votes, as if she had slid down in popularity.

You see, she had beaten Marcos in a neck-and-neck vice presidential race in 2016, both with around 15 million votes.

-oOo-

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