Ideally, elections afford citizens opportunity to vet candidates’ qualifications: education, track record, character, platform, etc. However, this ideal seems to have become a thing of the past with the use of surveys purporting to be independent business endeavors and catering to no particular interest group, during election period.
While survey companies claim they are guided by research modalities in gathering survey information, they conduct surveys not on their own volition but for a fee, at the behest of an interest group (seldom revealed).
Thus, given the circumstance that most Filipino voters are less schooled and, therefore, prone to manipulation, we are inclined to think that surveys deprive ordinary people, who comprise the voting population, the right to make an independent and intelligent choice of candidates. Thus, the mind-conditioning, trending and “bandwagon mentality” get the better of our ordinary voters, resulting in winners not independently chosen by them but predetermined by survey companies.
If we allow this to continue in future elections, most voters will remain ignorant of the issues affecting their daily lives as they, in essence, will be compelled to surrender their sacred right to choose to survey companies as they cast their votes.
—Benjie Guerrero
Business Center, Sulo Riviera
Diliman, Quezon City