Questioning surveys FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 05/04/2010

Questioning surveys

FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 05/04/2010 It’s amazing how, this late in the survey game, the firms that conduct these surveys admit that surveys are not predictive of the results of the presidential elections — nor for that matter, the senatorial polls, which incidentally, they hardly get right, as far as the last four to six bets’ rankings and getting into the Magic 12, go. It’s just as amazing that there is today an admission that, even a week in campaign politics can change the standings of the surveyed candidates. One polling official even admitted that survey frontrunners usually take advantage of the survey numbers for funding purposes. This was hardly the attitude these polling officials took in the past elections, always claiming accuracy — even at times boasting that their surveys end up exactly the same as the official count, without, of course, admitting that they are almost always off in their survey numbers of one’s lead percentage over the other. Some months back, a Pulse Asia analyst, interviewed in a Lopez network radio show, even claimed that, given the very low survey numbers of Erap Estrada, and the high numbers of Manny Villar and Noynoy Aquino, that it was almost impossible for Estrada to catch up.... MORE   Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100504com2.html

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