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Thursday, February 26, 2004
Mongaya: Reacting to surveys
By Anol Mongaya
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has gotten past Fernando Poe Jr. in the Pulse Asia survey? I’m sure Poe followers will have a field day criticizing the survey as unreliable in the same way that GMA diehards hit hard a survey by the Social Weather Station (SWS), a firm managed by FPJ’s cousin.
But after accepting the result of an earlier Pulse Asia survey that saw Da King taking the lead, the FPJ camp is now in an awkward position. Are they saying that a survey is reliable only if it benefits their candidate?
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Perhaps, the FPJ camp should reassess the way it is conducting their campaign. The public, for instance, wants FPJ to talk about how he intends to address the problems plaguing the country. They want to see him present his platform of government and defend this in a debate with the other candidates. But FPJ has so far shied away from talking about issues.
His adversaries are also starting to spread stories about his past, like those times when he got drunk (never mind if the incidents cited happened in the ‘60s), and about his rumored kids with other women.
Moreover, his campaign is stalled by the disqualification case pending in the Supreme Court. The FPJ camp has spent time battling the disqualification move, thus neglecting the other aspects of the national campaign.
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In Cebu City, Mayor Tomas Osmeña and some members of the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) also criticized a whole-day survey conducted by radio station dyAB whose result favored his rival, former mayor Alvin Garcia. The survey is vulnerable to manipulations, the mayor said. But had the result favored Osmeña, the BO-PK would most likely crow about it.
After discrediting it, BO-PK can no longer use the results of future dyAB surveys even if these will already favor the party.
I asked why the Garcia camp did not use the survey to gloat. A source said they just want the result to speak for itself. Besides, they feared Osmeña might lead in future surveys. Meaning, that they might suffer the same predicament that the FPJ camp is now in.
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BO-PK people could not claim the moral high ground relative to the posters of Joel Garganera and the streamer of Paul Oaminal because they did it first. Just look at the streamers hanging on the skywalks and the billboards that supposedly inform the people about public concerns.
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Evangelist and presidential contender Eddie Villanueva barnstormed Cebu yesterday. Earlier, a source said Sen. Ping Lacson planned to visit Cebu also but the sortie was postponed to mid-March. Maybe, the Lacson camp is also waiting for the disqualification of FPJ before intensifying his campaign.
But a wag said that Lacson’s visit to Cebu may have been so covert nobody knew about it including his followers. Kidding aside, I was told Lacson supporters are busy organizing in Cebu.
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National Bureau of Investigation 7 Chief Reynaldo Esmeralda reportedly changed his mind on keeping the right-hand drive vehicles it seized from a local businessman last month. He is now saying he will turn it over to the Bureau of Customs after the court resolves questions on its warrant to apprehend the vehicles reportedly worth P12 million.
But I think Esmeralda simply has no choice. The Tariff and Customs Code provides that contraband seized by law enforcement agencies should be turned over to the Bureau of Customs for forfeiture proceedings.
In fact, the law provides that this should be done in 72 hours. Past cases show that even the courts cannot prevent the turnover of the items to the customs bureau. I think Esmeralda knows this. Anyway, he still owns the distinction of having apprehended the shipment that could mean additional revenues once forfeited in favor of the government and sold in public auction.
(E-mail: superbalita@ sunstar.com.ph or anol_ cebu@hotmail.com; text: 0917-9761193)
(February 26, 2004 issue)
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