Surveys On Candidates During Elections Should Be Banned

July 20,2010
Surveys On Candidates During Elections Should Be Banned
By Quirico M. Gorpido, Jr.
When was this so-called survey on candidates started in the Philippines? Who initiated it? As long as I can remember since I became a voter, it was only during the recent years that survey on the popularity of a candidate or candidates have began. However, this kind of survey that survey agencies have utilized is not satisfying if any person would look at its procedure in collecting “specimen” for interviews. With respondents of less than three thousands gathered from various places to gauge a presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates’ popularity rate could not really represent the bulk of majority of the 50M plus Filipino voters. Yet this was the way we were led to believe by the survey agencies that conducted the surveys of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates during the recent and the first automated polls on May 10,2010 national and local elections.
How can such popularity rate results of percentages taken from the selected respondents for the two highest positions of the Republic of the Philippines represents the voices, the minds and the sentiments of the rest of the 50M plus Filipino voters in the country? There are still many municipalities and cities in the entire archipelago that were not covered by the survey agencies. The surveys cannot make me believe on the explanations, equations and ratios in survey results. I have the belief and the conviction that logical and analytical thinkers could not also believe nor accept their kind of report or explanations regarding their system.
However, this scheme has pre-conditioned some voters’ mind with a “lean on decision” out of convenience and have stopped using their brains to really analyze and evaluate the given survey results which were based only on a very small fraction of the entire population. This is the reason that survey results could not be relied upon. It has only provided a mindset that has no firm grasp on the real condition of those candidates running for either the presidential or Vice-presidential seat.
The better ways to anchor on our personal choices of candidates running for the highest down to the lowest positions in the government service is to dig deep on their family background, characteristic traits, academic side, track records and the agenda or programs of government if they will be elected in the positions they are aspiring for. These are the most effective ways that every wise voter must take into consideration during elections. Let us not allow ourselves to be influenced by survey results even if such kind of measure on the candidates popularity is branded as “survey science” or science survey” whatever that means.
Is the conduct of surveys on candidates’ popularity in selected areas a voluntary job? Or is a presidential or Vice-presidential candidate/s pay for it? If a candidate or candidates seeking for the highest position of the Land have paid for the conduct of surveys, how are they paying it? Conducting of political surveys with payments is disadvantageous to candidates who have limited funds to spend. But more serious is that only a few places were subjected to surveys while huge chunks of the country’s population remain untouched by the survey agencies. Hence, this system is considered as unfair and unjust to other candidates and also to the voters themselves who need to be properly informed. Because of this, I would like to suggest to the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) that surveys on candidates running for president and Vice-president and other government positions should be banned or abolished.
On the other hand, we can have nationwide surveys (in every cities and municipalities in the whole archipelago)on the health conditions of our people, population rate, nutrition, employment, migration, diseases, and breastfeeding of babies and non-breastfeeding of babies, agriculture, educational system, poverty level, among other things.
If a law is necessary to effect the banning or the abolition of political surveys, our legislators in Congress should consider enacting such kind of law. In other words, let us go back to the most basic measures in choosing and electing competent candidates who run for public offices. Let us also stop selling our votes for a thousand or several hundred of pesos come election time. Our politicians in turn should also stop buying votes. Who were those politicians in the past who initiated the buying of votes from the electorate during elections? They should realize that what they have done is a great disservice to the country. It was also reportedly revealed on TV that two of the provinces that were allegedly higher spenders during the first automation polls on May 10, 2010 elections were Sarangani and Southern Leyte. The buying and selling of votes has become a bad habit. Some voters who used to receive money during elections from some politicians would not go anymore to the precinct to cast their ballots, if not a single politician or candidate has given them money, three, two or one day before voting time. I have stated this because some voters by their own volition have revealed this to me.
Nevertheless, if each and every one of us, voters, would resolve to really stop selling our votes by refusing to accept money from the politicians during elections, we can do it. Yes, we can do it. If we give more importance to our right of suffrage and keep our dignities intact, considering that our right is sacred and priceless, then we can stop now selling our votes. Accepting money from any politician or candidate during elections-that is three, two or one day before voting time, means that you are selling your vote and you lose half of your dignity as a voter.
Do you not know that politicians who have spend millions and millions of money during elections to buy votes are not happy after all? Let us pity and be kind to the politicians.Yes, let us pity and be kind to them, also. Much more let us pity and be kind to ourselves, too. They are only force to do it because they want to win in the elections. They want to serve the Filipino people for some purpose that they themselves know, coupled with personal interest of course, which is but natural for every person in any kind of endeavour.They want to build names for themselves to be remember well after their passing by the following generations. We only hope that they choose to build good names rather than bad names that can reap for themselves blessings instead of curses. We also hope that trustworthy service to the nation is the topmost part of their intentions and priorities in seeking for elective positions in the Government.
But this kind of business activity (vote buying and vote selling) between the politicians and the voters are both bad and deplorable. If we really need real change, genuine change, let us discourage the politicians to buy our votes. What is three or four days pleasure and enjoyment after casting your votes? This is just short term and temporary relief but not a solution to our poverty and the ills of our society as a whole. It is quite enough that some of us can approach some incumbent politicians who are kind and generous and have granted our requests for financial assistance for our hospitalization problems, and in some occasions, to buy medicines we badly needed. We should not add burden to them anymore by allowing them to spend millions and millions of pesos to buy our votes during election time. This is a bad practice and should be eradicated now in our system and character as a people. Enough is enough .If they have good track records /good performances during their office tenures and they would run for re-elections, then we should re-elect them. It is much better, appreciable and meaningful if the millions and millions of money spent by the politicians to buy votes during election time will be used instead to buy plenty of the most needed medicines for our hospitals nationwide so that all confined patients, particularly the indigents and the admitted PhilHealth and non-PhilHealth members, including us (in case we get sick), can be provided with the intended prescribed medicines for theirs and our sicknesses and diseases. We should stop selling our votes now starting these coming barangay elections to be conducted before the end of this year. As well as the next election of 2013 and the rest of the elections to come. We must do it now until the end. And we can if we will.
You might ask:”You are so daring in admonishing us to stop selling our votes. Did you do it yourself? My answer is YES, I’m doing it myself. Since I became a voter, I could not remember selling my right to vote for a few hundred pesos even once during elections. Although there were two occasions during elections that my name was included in the list of voters who were going to receive a few hundred pesos from a moneyed politician. However, I told my distant relative to tell his older sibling to delete my name in the list. He told me:”Sayang, kuarta na na.Maayo nalang na para nimo. Anugon nga imong guibalibaran”, he said in Cebuano.(What a waste, it’s money already. That’s good for you. Why do you have to refuse it?)
Candidly speaking, if any politician will give me money outside election period, I will accept it with great thankfulness because I’m a poor man. It only means that he/she wants to help me even in small way. Matter-of-factly,until now I don’t own a house and is always renting and don’t even have my own computer/laptop for my own use until this very moment since I have a very low income. My article-based honorariums are very small. I’m very glad that a certain businessman in good standing has generously allow me to use his computer where I can encode, correct and store my articles for future needs and referrences.But I know without even telling me to do so that I will just voluntarily stop using his computer, if only I have the money now to buy my own laptop. Nonetheless, how can I stop using it(even if I like) when I cannot buy my own? Editors of newspapers here in region 8(Leyte and Samar) and I believe also in other places of publications, will no longer accept type-written articles but encoded ones and to be emailed. Unlike before, nowadays Editors and other members of newspapers or magazines personnel do not want anymore to encode submitted articles. They just want to copy and paste, which is much easier and faster. I hope that I have a well-to-do relative or a philanthropist who can read this article and can well afford, and has the magnanimity to buy me as a gift a laptop for my personal use so that I can start weaning myself from the reliance on my benefactor’s computer. But when this will happen? I do not know. Only time will tell. I hope it will come soon.
Where can you find in the Philippines a writer who also sells community and national newspapers in the streets? That’s a rare and unusual thing. But that is actually happening to me due to my being a poor man. When I was living in Metro Manila for the past several years, I have also experiences working in private companies. But, as we all know, jobs are not permanent and often subject to changes, lead offs and other causes, either reasons of incompatibility in mutual relationship with co-workers or health reasons. Nonetheless, during election time, if any politician will give me money through his/her leader, which is an obvious sign or act of buying my vote and your votes, I will strongly refused it despite of whatever kind of explanation and persuasion he/she will utterly do. Since I was able to do It myself with patience and determination and will continue to do it, I know for sure that you can also do it if you will.(Quirico M. Gorpido,Jr.)