Ho-hum… Villar cuts Noynoy’s lead in survey

Is this a horse race or a Presidential election? Are we betting on a cockfight or are we looking for a leader? Are we herded into some popularity contest instead of deciding the course that our country will take in the next six years?

Manny Villar catches up to Noynoy Aquino in SWS survey

These were the thoughts that ran through my mind after reading in Inquirer dot Net’s breaking news that Presidential candidate Manny Villar had narrowed down Noynoy Aquino’s lead in a Social Weather Station survey.

Here’s an excerpt from that report:

Villar cut Aquino’s lead by eight points – from 19 to 11 percentage points, said the survey sought by San Juan representative Ronaldo Zamora, and conducted from December 27 to 28.

Of the 2, 100 respondents asked by the SWS in Filipino as to who on its list would they most likely vote for if elections were held today, 44 percent said they would go for Aquino while 33 percent for Villar.

Fifteen percent of the respondents chose former president Joseph Estrada while five percent for administration candidate Gilbert Teodoro, the survey said.

Television evangelist Eddie Villanueva came next with one percent, Senator Richard Gordon with 0.5 percent, and Senator Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal and independent John Carlos de los Reyes tied with 0.4 percent.

I subscribe to the idea that the publication of surveys that shout who is in the lead of one survey or another basically serves a propaganda for the leader in that survey.  It says that the leader of the survey is the one who is most likely to win in the electoral contest and this endows the survey leader with the advantage of a winnable image.

For the second most popular, the advantage of publishing a story that says he is catching up on the survey leader casts the electoral contest as a two way fight.  The other candidates in the electoral contests are cast as also-rans, even before the race is actually run on May 2010.

Moreover, I think that this propaganda of winnability in the form of claiming the lead in certain surveys has an effect on people.  It is a form of mental conditioning that puts blinders on the eyes of the voting public, brainwashing them into believing that the only choices they have are those that lead in the surveys.

Together with the fact that the Comelec makes little or no effort at all at leveling the playing field for all contenders in terms of campaign spending and the amount of political ads a candidate can put out — even before the start of the official campaign period, this creates a situation where in the only candidates that will be present in people’s mind are those that land on front pages because of surveys and those who can have their faces in media 24/7.

If Noynoy Aquino and Manuel Villar are the only names most people get exposed to most of the time, then it becomes most likely that people will think that these are the only contenders in the electoral contest.

On Twitter, there was an exchange between @momblogger (Noemi Dado, blogwatch) and pre-eminent blogger @mlq3 (Manuel Quezon III).  In that exchange, @mlq3 said this, apparently, in response to Noemi’s queries on whether surveys influence a voter’s decision:

@momblogger afaik only about 3% of voters decide on candidates on the basis of surveys

@momblogger If you look at ADMU’s Institute of Phil Culture study of D&E sources of influence on voting decision: http://tinyurl.com/yk4tx3y

Following the shortlink posted by @mlq3, I landed on a matrix showing the result of the Institute of Philippine Culture’s study on “Sources of Influence on voting decision.”

@mlq3 points to the result of a study saying that surveys influence only 3 percent of voters

This tends to go against my position that surveys influence people into voting for the leader in that survey.

That is, until you consider that surveys are published in the media and this forms part of the propaganda put out by the candidate, raising even further awareness for the survey leader.

But regardless of whether or not surveys do or do not influence how people vote, what is clear to me is that electing a leader means choosing the person with the best qualifications for a position and that involves examining a candidate’s worthiness based on a criteria.  Of course, the criteria by itself will not do you any good unless you get to know as much as you can about the other candidates.

If you want to go through various criteria for choosing a President or any candidate, you can go over to @momblogger’s blog.