The influential Palace
It’s just wrong. Next time, even an acting president shouldn’t be allowed to run for the presidency for a fresh new term. I see no difference from the constitutional ban on full-term incumbents. The incumbent president will always have the full powers of the influential Palace.
Palace hand seen in survey results. [From The Manila Times, February 26, 2004]
How can that be when the same survey said that 72 percent of those polled will not vote for [Mrs. Arroyo]. That means that 72 percent plus 31.9 percent [Mrs. Arroyo’s rating] is more than 100 percent. Ibig sabihin, wala na ring undecided� [Senator Panfilo] Lacson said.
…
[KNP Spokesman Mike] Romero said that Pulse Asia’s survey was intended to condition the minds of voters for an Arroyo victory, which is possible only through a wholesale poll cheating.
I don’t like surveys either, especially when many Filipino voters vote largely based on their candidate’s winnability, which makes them not vote for who they truly want. Sponsored surveys have the vulnerability to become political tools used to fool and sway voters to vote for certain politicians.
Palace denies raid on P500M student fund. [From Malaya, February 26, 2004]. Okay, so the Palace says it’s blatant falsehood. That’s all they can say? That’s the problem. So you say that it’s part of her ‘job’ to dole out government-spent privileges to the most needy. Why so many right now when you’re campaigning at the same time? We cannot distinguish any more. (Besides, doling out is the least of a President’s job. If she wanted to do her job as President, there are so many other things she can and should do).
Palace in mad scramble to cover up NEA mess. [From The Daily Tribune, February 26, 2004].
Sanchez, however, stressed that the agency has been practically shut down and that the employees, numbering 133, not 158 as announced by Bueno, were hired in the past two weeks to enable Malacanang and NEA management to cover their tracks.
…
Sanchez also last Tuesday dared Malaca�ang and NEA to prove their claim that the agency is functioning under normal circumstances by allowing the media to inspect the supposedly operating main and regional offices.
See? Some provisions must be added to the Constitution, banning acting presidents to run for the position they are filling in. They still are, incumbents, with the same powers to abuse just as any full-term President has. Plus, it gets really annoying when several people keep insisting that we should just elect (NOT re-elect) Gloria Arroyo for the lame sake of continuity. Continuity of what? Rampant corruption among her minions? Inefficiency in governance? It wouldn’t be good if we keep changing presidents, they say. Well, that’s the point of our democracy. I guess you’d rather have monarchs and dictators then?
On surveys:
We have to understand that the Filipino public, whatever class we get classified in, isnt some zombie zone.
There is no right or wrong vote, any more than there is a right or wrong candidate.
The statistics on the band-wagon show that there is only a minimal propensity for the BandWagon effect. The only way a vote can be changed is by the person themselves. They’d only really change their vote if their vote wasnt solid in the first place.
Let’s not assume that the Masa are some large group of stupid people.
In fact, surveys, being public and open to the entire public, as by Supreme Court ruling, are subject to a lot of scruntiny, such as you yourself give.
While they’re not to be interpreted into a perfect thing - a three point margin considered a tie, they serve as a safeguard in an election process.
Could you imagine if the Comelec just counted votes and told us who won?
We would have no idea whether or not this was true or no, because we would not have as many things to check up to.
Comelec ruled Marcos the winner in the snap election. Without these additional safeguards, how can we be guaranteed a cleaner process from the government?
GICA: Sponsored surveys are different from like… NAMFREL quickcounts (though they’ve shown bias against FPJ). That was the safeguard against Marcos fraud, not surveys.
Sponsored surveys are still vulnerable to abuse and misuse. Its influence over the many ‘weak’ voters is very significant.
Actually, Pulse Asia is just crap. I think the administrative party is the one who sponsored their survey. It’s easy to manipulate surveys by virtue of “randomization.”
But then again, all surveys will have their biases. However, the reason why you have a multitude of surveys is for these biases to cancel out each other. So I *still* believe in the sound survey system amidst the crazy, political chaos.
And I still think that the greater voting block will be on FPJ (and this isn’t by virtue of, as Gica said, the masa being “stupid”). And there’s nothing GMA can do, even if he kicks him off the race. It will just antagonize the public. She should just keep a lower profile.