EDITORIAL : THE DAILY TRIBUNE, THE PHILIPPINES

 

 

Accurate gauge of the public pulse?

 
The unreliability in measuring the public pulse by these “independent” surveys can be shown through a comparison of the survey results from two different firms, conducted more or less during the same time frame (May 21 to June 4, for Pulse Asia and June 3 to 6 for Social Weather Stations), with both having a respondent base of 1,200 and the same error margins.
SWS had a 64 percent satisfaction rating for Noynoy, down five percentage points from his March ratings of 69 percent, with 18 percent dissatisfied in June.
Pulse Asia had a trust rating for Noynoy at 71 percent and a distrust rating of eight percent, with 22 percent undecided.
About the same results were found in both Pulse trust and approval ratings.
Respondents came from Metro Manila, rest of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao and responses were recorded by both survey firms.
So why should there be such huge discrepancies in percentages between the two survey outfits? There is a seven percent difference between the two approval and satisfaction ratings. While it can be dismissed by them, it should be pointed out that if one percent represents some 500,000 Filipinos, that would mean a discrepancy of at least 3.5 million Filipinos, when compared to the SWS survey’s 64 percent satisfaction rating.
At the same time, SWS put the dissatisfaction rating at 18 percent, while Pulse put it down at eight percent, or a 10 percent variance, which again is much too big.
And yet both claim that 1,200 respondents all over the country were interviewed, and that their surveys had only a +/-3 error margin.
It can be claimed that the two surveys were conducted at different times, yet if such surveys are, as claimed, the stuff of scientific methodology, surely, the variance cannot be that much — if, as claimed again, that these survey findings are the measure of the public pulse. One wonders too, just how many respondents there are in a given area in such a wide archipelago, to represent 100 percent of Filipinos.
Pulse had a two week time frame for conducting its survey on 1,200 respondents, while SWS had a mere three days to conduct its survey also on 1,200 respondents, which is also pretty questionable, in that it is known that one field researcher can only do five interviews a day with respondents on a face-to-face basis — and there is no guarantee that every respondent the survey taker approaches immediately agrees to answer the questions posed by the field researcher, especially in the A and upper B classes, since they generally reside in security-guarded villages, where field researchers or salesmen can’t have easy access.
It can of course be claimed by the survey outfits that they have hundreds of field researchers going from house to house, but they have hardly ever been transparent on where these field workers they have, where they come from and whether they are UP students hired for the survey job, or an outfit that they tap for their field research work. No one even knows if the two survey groups have the same field researchers.
In much the same way, radio and TV also have surveys done by different outfits, with GMA-7 getting the services of Nielsen and ABS-CBN getting the services of Kantar-TNS, which is reportedly the same outfit both Pulse and Asia used for their surveys in the past, albeit under a different name.
Between Nielsen and Kantar, there is too, disparity in the ratings, with Kantar stating that the number one network is ABS-CBN, its client; while Nielsen that has GMA-7 as client, puts GMA-7 as the number one network.
What it seems is that with SWS and Pulse, their survey findings are not the accurate pulse of the people.
That being so, such surveys are best thrown in the trash can.