What surveys don't say

Surveys say 85% to 90% of Angeleños to vote for ABEKA

ANGELES CITY - A great majority of voters in this city will vote for the Abe Kapampangan (ABEKA) in the partylist system. 

These were the results of two recent surveys which showed that 85% (84.8%) to 90% (89.92%) of Angeleños chose the ABEKA partylist.

“The November 2018 and January 2019 surveys are very consistent. ABEKA got 85% in the November 2018 polls and 90% in the January 2019 survey. These numbers are very encouraging,” said Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan, who is also the no. 1 nominee of the partylist.

“We know that our Cabalens and the voters of the entire region will support ABEKA, the only partylist representing Central Luzon. It is about time that we have regional representations in Congress so that comprehensive growth and development will be given focus,” Pamintuan added.

The Commission on Elections has already approved the petition for registration of ABEKA and it is qualified for the May 13, 2019 elections listed as No. 49 among the partylists in the official ballot…

Reference: Jericho Aguas - 0917 8114866 

HOGWASH, Aguas served us with his press release.

So, surveys said 85 percent to 90 percent of Angelenos or “a great majority” will vote for ABEKA. The surveys though, the PR at least, did not say the hows, the whys, and the wherefores leading to such a definitive conclusion.

It failed to give the rudiments of its demographics – how large was the survey universe, who were the respondents, segmentation, etc. What was/were the question/s asked the respondents? How was the survey conducted – random sampling, scientific, by phone, face-to-face? Was the survey commissioned? Who conducted the survey? What was the margin of error, and how was it arrived at?

Absent these basics, the surveys Aguas press released readily fall to that fakery resorted to by unscrupulous pollsters derisively called lalam cuayan survey. Done under the bamboo groves. Deliberately concocted and contrived to deceive a target audience. In this wise, the voters – misinformed and misled with a puffed-up image of the party in the running to gain their support. The so-called bandwagon effect being the primary objective here.

For all we know, Aguas can be citing absolute facts with that 85-90 percent sure vote – inferred in the definitive will in the lead paragraph – for ABEKA. Like, the surveys asked 10 Angelenos eating out at The Yard and 9 of them said they would vote for ABEKA.  Presto, 90 percent of Angelenos will vote for ABEKA. Logically sound, yeah?

By no stretch of extrapolation though can one even come close to that conclusion. Hence the need for demographics. As one sparrow does not a summer make. Nor a dozen trees a forest.  

That ABEKA has the support of the Angeles voters needs no survey, scientific or random, to prove. That is conceded. Its first nominee, incumbent Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan stakes his candidacy on the solid ground of performance in public office – hizzoner, Cabinet member, peace panelist, president of the country’s league of cities. He is worth every Angeleno vote. I pray daily for his victory.  

Alas, it does not take a survey too to totally refute the conclusive “85% to 90% of Angeleños to vote for ABEKA.”

For one, there is the AWAKE Partylist, also based in the city.  

Born, bred, and breeding in Angeles City, first nominee Edgar Lopez is no pushover in politics even without having served in any elective position. An accomplished organizer who could give the galloping mayorable Alexander Cauguiran a run for his masa, Lopez is a pillar of the Tau Gamma Phi, having once even served, if memory serves right, as its grand chancellor.

If only for the multitude of Triskelions in the city, AWAKE is assumed to get more, much, much more than the 10 percent left over from ABEKA’s “great majority” of 90 percent.

Then, there is Butil Partylist that in elections past figured well not only in the city but in the whole of Central Luzon. With the region as its political base, the more established Butil looms as impregnable wall to ABEKA’s push as a “regional representation.”

There can be no denying CIBAC (Citizens Battle Against Corruption) Partylist some share of the Angeles vote, if only for televangelist Eddie Villanueva as first nominee. The dedication of his Jesus Is Lord congregation goes beyond the spiritual realm. While it proved far short of pushing Villanueva to serious contention for the presidency, it was major contributory to his son Joel’s seating in the Senate.     

So, how many percent of the city’s voting population is in the vise grip of the bloc-voting Iglesia ni Cristo? Most certainly this did not figure in Aguas’ proffered surveys. Else, his survey results are not only invalid but downright stupid!

Hogwash, indeed, Aguas.

Which makes this whole affair of press releasing survey results, whether factual or false, a double-edged sword.

Propaganda – as these survey releases are nothing but – can always backfire. With the outcome diametric to the intended results.

Propa-pangit. The spinmeisters of my generation coined that word for it.      

Their caveat, true then and truer now: Believe in published surveys at your own peril.