By Mortz C. Ortigoza
I was amused hearing
two radio reporters of a premier radio station talking about two candidates for
a higher office. These duo ingratiate with their favorite politicos because
they have a 15 percent commission on the air time fee they exact from any one of
them.
Reporter 1: Noong
sinabi ko na hindi na kukuha si ____ ng air time napailing iyong P.R man ng
kalaban. Sinabi niya sa akin: “Akala ko madami pera iyong kabilang
partido. Naka prepara na ang missile namin, kwitis lang pala ang kaya”.
I
blurted with a guffaw.
This radio station
bills very expensively a buyer of its air time.
***
A seasoned politiko who
was with us said that despite the projects an elective public official had
given to his constituents he should have wherewithal to buy votes because
voters who belong to the C-D-E Classes are apathetic about the
countless projects he gave but will vote for a candidate because of his money.
“I could afford to buy
even with three waves for one thousand pesos for each of the voters,” he quipped.
He cited that a few
days before the election he will test if the opponent could reciprocate his one
thousand pesos.
“If my opponent could
not do a financial tit –for-tat, I’ll forego the last two waves”.
Who said, son of a gun,
that election is a cake walk? Winning it is not for the faint heart. One needs
to spend tens if not hundred of millions of pesos in a position that gives only
a PhP100, 000 monthly pay and emoluments.
***
Many politicians and
media practitioners mistook the surveys being done at Facebook or phone patches
by radio anchormen about how many voters will vote for a certain bet and his
opponent as "Gospel Truth".
These surveys, that
even senatorial bets PR crowed publicly, were not credible.
How can you say your
candidate for a particular elective position be it national or local wins when
members of the popular social media founded and run by the group of Mark
Zuckerberg did not represent the electorates?
Paano naman iyong mga
farmers, jeepney drivers, and even those members of the millennial (22 to 37
years old) and the post-millennial (0 to 21 years old) who did not have Facebook
account at their android mobile phones?
Besides, FB accounts
can be manipulated by candidates who can commission people to make more fake
accounts and joined the survey.
Same too with those
done by radio stations be it FM or AM.
The most credible polls
to gauge the sentiment of the voters are those scientific surveys done by
Rasmussen Reports and Gallup Polls in the U.S and the Social Weather Station and
Pulse Asia in the Philippines.
There are provincial
pollsters I know who cut their teeth on the trade by predicting the result of
the election two weeks before the voters cast their ballots or the Commission
of Election declared the winners.
That was what we called
“credibility” of their craft.
“Paano naman maging
accurate iyang SWS and Pulse Asia e 1,200 or 1, 500 respondents all over the
country ang sample nila e almost 64 million ang voters?” I heard this common poser from skeptics.
“Paano mo naman masabi
iyong isang kawang suman na niluluto ng dalawang mama’ ay mapakla o matamis e
isang kutsara lang ang pinagsample mo na ginamit pang tikim?” my question to them, too.
Usually these pollsters
use Random Sampling.
“With
a total universe or sampling frame of 1,500 respondents of voting age as
distributed on weighted averages on the target area. The poll was conducted on
a Confidence Level of 98 percent on the overall design with an error margin of
2.8 percent on the overall landscape/level and 3-5 percentage points on the
local application at the city/municipal level,” a pollster told me before.
***
Here's my take to the
other critics of some surveys that say Candidate A trail blazed Candidate B by
miles because he paid millions of pesos the pollster who commissioned a survey
for him.
“Kung si Candidate B
ang nag commission niyan, siya ang nag trail blaze kay Bet A,” some usual response to those who did not
understand or to those PR guys who want to pooh-pooh the
"devastating" result that “chop” the head of their patron more
than two months before the election.
I told them they were
wrong. Pollster ask candidates to pay for the survey because the result will be
their guide to re-strategize two months before the D-Day.
Kung kulelat, dagdagan
ang ikot. Kung kelangan magpakawala ng milyon milyon piso sa ads dapat
magpakawala, kung may pera pa matutong bumili ng mga leaders at boto to thwart
the naked truth of the polls about the candidate, o kung kelangan pumunta sa
Maynila at magsumbong ng mga alleged krimen at kuropsiyon sa national TV
stations or sa Senado para may masisira at may gumuapo, dapat gawin, someone
said.
“That’s plain stupidity
to say kung kayo ang nagbayad kayo ang panalo. E paano naman ang kredibilidad
ng pollster pag iyong result ng survey niya baliktad. Iyong nanalo sa polls
niya iyon ang natalo e di apektado ang credibility ng racket niya. Sa next 2022
election wala ng magpapa survey sa kanya. Good bye iyong million
pesos na kita niya,” I
told some critics who did not know about this sampling marvel.
If the 1,200 or 1,500
respondents say of an exit poll did not represent the almost 64 million voters
in the country, why all the presidential and senatorial bets SWS and Pulse Asia
ranked in their result were the same in the actual counting of the Comelec?
Because, salamabit, there was an effing science on it!
Because, salamabit, there was an effing science on it!
The only exception as
far as I remembered were names like Enrile (1995 election), Zubiri (2007
election), and others who were not part of the Magic 12 of these two famous
poll outfits in the exit poll who came out victorious.
The ugly reason behind?
Election counting then were done manually and the insidious from either of
these candidates surreptitiously sneaked thousands of fake votes in their favor
because of “Dagdag-Bawas" (add and subtract machination).
Now you got it?!
Now you got it?!
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(You can read my
selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at
Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)
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