Allies in opinion research

More and more institutions are getting seriously involved in opinion research.

Last Monday, I met with leading academics of Ateneo de Davao University (Addu), headed by its president, Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ. It was Father Joel who inspired the SWS items that led to the report “9% of Catholics sometimes think of leaving the Church” (SWS Media Release, 4/7/2013).  Addu has done several surveys, including election surveys, in Davao.  Now SWS and Addu are exploring a possible partnership in Davao.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I facilitated focus group discussions in Davao and Cagayan de Oro, respectively, for the coming 2013 SWS Survey of Enterprises on Corruption, the 11th in a series since 2000. The discussions were organized by the Department of Trade and Industry for survey-partner National Competitiveness Council, with national and local government officials, business leaders and academics as participants.

Through these sessions, I learned that there is now an Institute of Public Opinion in the University of Mindanao, which thus joins Addu, Notre Dame University in Cotabato, and Holy Name University in Tagbilaran (doer of the Bohol Poll) as academic polling bodies in the south.

On Thursday, I was guest speaker at the general membership meeting of the Marketing and Opinion Research Society of the Philippines (MORES).  It was good to be among old friends (I was MORES president in 1992), and meet new ones.

I recalled MORES’ support in the successful 2001 fight against the election survey ban of the original Fair Election Act’s Section 5.4, which was very quickly declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (SWS v. Comelec, GR 147571, May 5, 2001).  Jurisprudence declares that both preelection surveys and exit polls are protected by freedom of expression.

The fight for survey freedom is never-ending.  Recently, the University of the Philippines School of Statistics Alumni Association (UPSSAA) issued a position statement to “stand by the use and unrestricted publication of public opinion polls as a means of information exchange between constituents and decision-makers and as a means for enriching collective choice and critical thinking in a maturing democracy” (April 29, 2013; posted on www.sws.org.ph).  The leading signatory of the statement is UPSSAA president Nicco de Jesus, a former president of MORES; I was able to thank him personally last Thursday.

MORES is an association of both survey-doers and survey-users (from the business sector).  No need to explain sample size to either group.  No need to convince them that professionals design survey questions fairly, and calculate and report the findings correctly.  No need to argue that survey respondents tell the truth, and do not readily flip-flop; voting intentions, like consumer intentions, stay valid unless external conditions change.

MORES people know from experience that surveys work. Surveys don’t have to be perfect.  They only have to be far superior to guesswork, and worth the expense of getting the data.

MORES people know that opinion polling is a means of promoting democracy, not a means of subverting it. Polling is listening to people. It’s the opposite of telling people what to do.  The weak political candidates who claim that surveys engage in “trending” only belittle the intelligence of the Filipino people. (Mere proclamation that brand X is the most popular brand cannot, by itself, make more people buy X.  Neither can mere proclamation that candidate A will win, by itself, make more people vote for A.)

Why do survey researchers everywhere look for election surveys to succeed? Those in market research know that it assures business that survey respondents tell the truth about their consumer likes and dislikes.  We at SWS want the general public, and the government in particular, to

accept that our respondents tell the truth about being poor or not, and about experiencing hunger or not.

The general public likes surveys.  It likes to be informed. It likes the assurance that its views are being counted and are being disseminated to all.

Voters may or may not use the survey information to adjust their votes.  Since, in fact, only a few do so, election outcomes are hardly affected.  Yet even if the election outcome were affected, it would not be undemocratic.

Actually, even politicians like election surveys.  We know this because they look back at campaigns and analyze them with the help of the surveys.  Every three years political parties and candidates come back to the survey professionals and commission more research.  Politicians aren’t stupid; they don’t want to lose by not being as scientific as their opponents.

But there are times when some politicians pretend that surveys are unreliable.  Posturing is only part of their game.  They fear breaking the morale of their campaigners. But most of all they fear the drying up of the money.  Some politicians wouldn’t mind losing, if they could laugh all the way to the bank.

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SWS joins the social survey community in grieving for Fr. Andrew M. Greeley, “My favorite priest” (Inquirer, 3/16/2013), who passed away in his sleep last May 29 at 85.  I first met him in 1990, at my first meeting of the International Social Survey Programme; the ISSP was so much fun with Father Andrew around. Indefatigable novelist, sociologist, survey researcher, and yet, in his own words, just a priest, and not a hyphenated anything.

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Contact SWS: or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.