Dick Gordon Filed Raps against Survey Firms

Presidential aspirant Richard “Dick” Gordon filed a lawsuit against Pulse Asia and SWS to make the two survey firms accountable for the damage that their survey results did to his presidential campaign. The lawsuit is also filed in behalf of Gordon’s vice-presidential candidate, Bayani Fernando.

Based on the lawsuit filed, Gordon is seeking 650 thousand pesos worth of damages against Pulse Asia and SWS. According to Gordon’s lawyer, the lawsuit was filed because the two survey firms were issuing presidential survey results based on survey procedures that are already obsolete and are not being used in other countries like the United States. One of the survey procedures that were deemed as obsolete by Gordon’s camp is the face to face interview that is still being used by the two survey firms.

According to Gordon’s camp, the survey results that are based on obsolete and faulty survey procedures are causing damage on the campaign of Dick Gordon and Bayani Fernando. In the SWS and Pulse Asia presidential surveys, Gordon and Fernando usually fall to 5th or 6th places.

SWS and Pulse Asia, on the other hand, expressed that the survey procedures that they use are not obsolete and give results that are statistically true. They also denied allegations that the results of presidential surveys are based on whoever commissioned the survey.

Political analysts say that surveys are one of the good tools that candidates can use in determining their stand in the elections and how they are perceived by the public.

Paid Surveys and Trending

In this year’s elections, both SWS and Pulse Asia were accused of trending and manipulates results in favor of whoever pays them to do their surveys. Survey fourth placer Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro, in one of his political ads, stressed that the voice 1000 or so number of persons that is used by the survey firms is not enough to gauge the real sentiment of the people. This is also the stand of the many presidential candidates that are trailing the presidential surveys.

Some experts believe that the survey results that come out of the media affects the voting preferences of the public and somehow causes the bandwagon effect.  Candidates that are on the top spots of the surveys will garner more votes than those who are in the bottom.

Commentary:

Surveys are indeed an excellent tool to gauge the people’s perception on a certain candidate or candidates during an election. But it is problematic if the survey results affect the voting preferences of the public through the bandwagon effect. It is as if the measuring tool itself becomes one of the variables that are considered when doing a scientific experiment. This effect of publicizing the presidential surveys somewhat undermines the credibility of the presidential surveys.

The usefulness of surveys is undeniable but its results should not be publicized for the sake of the voting public and the candidates. We should accept the fact that majority of Filipino voters are easily swayed by political gimmicks instead of basing their decisions on the characters of the candidates and their platform.

The bandwagon effect of publicizing the presidential surveys is detrimental to building an intelligent Filipino electorate. Dick Gordon’s move is good so as to stop the survey firms or any other person or group to publicize the results of presidential surveys before May 10.