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Thursday, May 27, 2004
Famador: Incredible
By Joel Famador
Now you know why you can’t trust the pollsters/survey firms like the social Weather Station (SWS) and False, er, Pulse Asia. Based on their individual surveys right before the elections, they said Gloria Macapagal Arroyo would win over Fernando Poe Jr. by a margin of about 10 percent. SWS even conducted an exit poll and found that GMA won over FPJ by about 9 percent with a 1.5 percent margin of error. Incredible.
But according to the count of that faceless Commission on Elections (Comelec) insider, who conducted a secret tally in breach of Tita Cory’s Constitution, GMA won over FPJ by about 900 thousand votes only despite the health cards, highway billboards, road repairs, emergency employment of thousands of street sweepers, and what-have-you.
And you thought that the great Dr. Mahar Mangahas would tilt his surveys in favor of his favorite cousin, FPJ. So there is no more truth to the rumor that blood is thicker than water. Maybe the correct rumor should be money is thicker than blood, as what happened in Cebu.
The inaccurate surveys (to say the least) of SWS and Pulse Asia made just before May 10 worked wonders for GMA. The surveys must have convinced a lot of undecided voters in the B and C classes (that had gambling tendencies to vote for a winner) to go for GMA.
Apparently, among the inaccurate surveys, the one that came from Ibon was the least inaccurate. You know why? Ibon found through its survey that FPJ was leading with about 25 percent (but sliding fast) and GMA quickly gaining on him with about 21 per cent with the same margin of error (whatever that means).
Ibon’s survey was far off the actual total winning votes for each candidate, but almost hit the bull’s eye on the projected margin of victory. Meaning it was a come-from-behind victory for GMA, overtaking FPJ in the three weeks going to May 10, not like the other surveys that placed GMA well on the lead with a margin of 10 percent.
With Ibon, the lead of FPJ then was only less than 3 percent if you considered the margin of error of 1.5 per cent. And 3 percent of 35 million votes cast – the actual turnout – is about one million votes. And that lead was snatched by GMA going through the final lap. So don’t discard Ibon. It is not a cuckoo after all.
As usual, in a banana rep, the loser does not concede, and mounts immediately a counter-attack, like destroying the credibility of the elections. (As if elections here are credible). Maybe the opposition meant that the elections were worse than incredible. That should be more accurate.
Of course, the “giver” in every election in this fruity republic is that everybody cheats, unless you don’t consider vote buying (in money and in kind) as a form of cheating. But then that will make you worse than incredible.
So how about asking somebody like Natalie Cole to sing the song “Incredible”? That should soften the credible, whoever that might be, assuming he/she is still in the list of the endangered species of the National Geographic.
(May 27, 2004 issue)
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