Pulse Asia hits claims vs pre-poll surveys

MANILA, Philippines — Pollster Pulse Asia has called out what it described as baseless accusations regarding its conduct of pre-election surveys, including allegations of partisanship and supposed violation of election law.

“We understand that survey results will elicit varied opinions. We respect all forms of feedback on our survey results, including fair academic comment on differing methodologies and interpretations of data,” Pulse Asia president Ronald Holmes said in a statement on Tuesday night.

“We do take exception, however, to three other baseless assertions that have gained unwarranted traction in some circles and some media,” he added.

Holmes responded to claims that the survey firm has been bought and that its field work has been compromised due to supposed infiltration of partisan groups.

“Our organization will never submit to any form of material inducement or even intimidation that will make us deviate from or distort accepted social science principles and practice. We have also taken all the necessary safeguards to secure the integrity of our field work against any and all forms of infiltration,” he said.

“Finally, the Supreme Court in 2003 struck down as unconstitutional a provision in Republic Act 9006 that prohibited the publication of survey results close to election day as it constitutes a prior restraint on the freedom of expression, among others,” he added.

Several groups had questioned Pulse Asia’s recent publication of its April survey, citing a provision in the Fair Election Act that prohibits the publication of surveys affecting national candidates 15 days before an election.

“Those who make these unfair and unjust criticisms bear the responsibility for their baseless accusations feeding into the spiral of disinformation and malinformation that afflicts our society,” said Holmes. “These false accusations only further deepen polarization and distrust and contribute to the continuous erosion of an already extremely feeble democratic order.”

Holmes also addressed the issues raised by former National Statistical Coordination Board secretary general Romulo Virola regarding the sampling of respondents in the Pulse Asia survey.

Virola earlier cited the underrepresentation of socio-economic classes, as well as of the youth and those with higher educational attainment.

“Given the sampling method that Pulse Asia employs, probabilistically selected respondents come from various socio-demographic groups. In our reports, however, we note the margin of error for each socio-demographic group (SDG),” said Holmes.

“This margin of error reflects the variance for the SDG given its share of the total sample of the survey and corrects, to a significant extent, what Dr. Virola finds as an under/over sampling of specific SDGs,” he added.

On the socio-economic classes, Holmes said Virola employed a classification different from the one used by most market research firms, including Pulse Asia.

“As a non-partisan, non-profit, non-stock organization of academics, Pulse Asia Research Inc. has consistently released to the public the results of our regular quarterly and the periodic pre-election surveys without fear or favor,” said Holmes.

“The dissemination of survey results manifests the value our organization places on the people’s right to information. We likewise hope that in releasing our survey results, we could elicit feedback from fellow academics, comments that are important in improving our work in taking the public’s pulse,” he said.

Holmes maintained that survey results, except for the exit poll, are time bound and “face serious limitations as a means of predicting actual election results.