How reliable are election surveys?

Do you accept surveys at face value? May be not anymore after reading the letter below. (Note: Abbey Canturias is the Managing Director of Campaigns & Images Group, who conducted the independent survey on our presidential elections 2010, commissioned by US and UK multinationals with business interests in the Philippines.)

From: Abbey Canturias
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 2:16 PM
Subject: A Simple Gift To Set You Free

Dear Becky,

We don't share our survey to candidates. But they may subscribe, with an express request, subject to permissions of our principals.

But, in the interest of objectivity and the people's right to know, we give away copies for free to selected men and women who deserved freedom from the lie. Supposedly it's not. A subscription copy normally costs $1,240 per survey.

The content confirmation we gave on the copy featured in Ms. Celdran's Facebook account was meant for the local copy sent to a diplomat (in Manila) from whom we tracked three leaks in the last two days.

Be that as it may, far be it from our control, our surveys are not meant for publicity; they're mainly for foreign business outside the Philippines looking in and preparing for policy changes in case a strong, potential winner emerges in the campaign homestretch.

Whoever wins the campaign and by what means---that is not our business.

Our responsibility is to find out who the likely winner will be so that we can brief our clients, even this early, on the policy regimen of the Philippines weeks before GMA steps down in June and few days before a new president is sworn in.

Hope you indeed found it useful. That was not a leak. We're giving this away gratis so you will know how SWS and Pulse Asia have dealt this country a shameful disservice.

They're not polling; they're mentally preconditioning people's choices toward a bandwagon effect----in favor of those who pay: their sponsors. I find that filthy practice very nauseating and revolting!

The way we crunch data, our multi-stage statistical sampling methods, simple math, and down-to-earth analyses---they are meant to show what a true, honest, factual survey should be. Believe me, any one who has basic algebra, physics, and geometry can do a survey the way we do.

A survey is not a complicated science that SWS and Pulse Asia made us all believe. They did so to add public wonderment and sophistication to their despicable trade.

In top-grade political surveys, you don't ask a respondent whether he's masa (CD) or middle class (B) or elite (A). That's taboo in our culture, isn't it?

If that is the case, the use of the ABCD classification is supposedly suspect, shallow, and misleading. Political research is not a household income survey for an economic progress measurement. It is supposedly a yardstick of preference and the reasons behind it.

You could choose to test yourself with this: Try asking person in the street if he is A, B, C, or D and you will be taken for a fool, if not avoided.

We just wonder why every one that Pulse Asia or SWS asked about "economic class-related questions" seems to relish it all these years.

Income is a sensitive cultural topic among Pinoys; it's unmentionable. Even my wife does not know exactly how big I make on a good month and how small on a lean one. And yet our pollsters made it appear so downright easy.

Honestly, all that has to be confirmed in a political survey is the accurate voter registration of the respondent, his age, belongingness to an economic sector, and his preference.

You should at least be able to note "why" he decides so and "think" of the atmosphere across which he is making a choice (for example, corruption in Malacanang; Erap as a convicted criminal; Noynoy making PhP 1.2 billion from security contracts with GOCC and large import/export companies six years the whole time when Cory was president, among others.)

Now that you understand, the gullibles among Filipinos will be one person less tonight than it was yesterday.

Congratulations. You've just been freed from the lie! Feel free to share to others.

Best regards,
Abbey