Gordon to QC court: Stop SWS, Pulse Asia surveys

BAGUMBAYAN Party standard-bearer Senator Richard Gordon yesterday asked the Quezon City Regional Trial Court to stop the Social Weather Station (SWS) and Pulse Asia from further conducting and publishing their surveys regarding the 2010 presidential election.

In a 26-page complaint for damages with application for temporary restraining order and/or writ of preliminary injunction, Gordon through his legal counsels, Chito Diaz and Carlo Tagalda, also asked the court to order the two survey firms to pay the amount of P500,000 for exemplary damages, P100,000 for nominal and temperate damages and P50,000 for attorney’s fees.

In his complaint, Gordon claimed that upon the start of the campaign period, he together with his running-mate, former Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Bayani Fernando were always met by huge and enthusiastic crowds who have expressed eager support for them as tried and tested leaders who have a clear vision and platform for the country and its people.

But without regard to their fundamental duty to act with justice and to observe honesty and good faith, Gordon said that the two survey firms, for pecuniary and solely for reasons intended to favor their moneyed clients, have published false, fraudulent, biased and defective surveys which have undermined their campaign and made them as unwinnable contenders for president and vice-president.

In all of the results issued by the two survey firms, Gordon is always ranked a distant fifth among all other presidential candidates while Bayani has only been ranked a poor fourth among the vice-presidential candidates.

Knowing that his continuously low ratings in the surveys of SWS and Pulse Asia were belied by the enthusiasm and approval of the huge crowds which have continuously attended his campaign sorties, Senator Gordon investigated the methods and practices used by the defendants in conducting their surveys.

Gordon, with the aid of his volunteers and noted polling experts, has discovered that the defendants did not use statistically and scientifically sound sampling protocols.

The group of Gordon also discovered that the defendants used methodologies that have long been declared as flawed, outdated and unreliable by majority of the pollsters in the U.S. and advanced countries.

The senator further said that the two survey firms have limited the choice of survey respondents to two candidates and omitted his name and other candidates in some of their interviews.

He also revealed that the two survey forms have allowed politicians to ask their own questions in their surveys for approximately P100,000 per question in addition to their subscription fee ranging from P300,000 to P400,000.

Gordon further contended that without regard to the Fair Election Practices Act and the Code of Professional Standards and Ethical Practices followed by their fellow pollsters, the defendants have failed and still fail and refused to disclose the sponsors who commissioned them, the methodology and sample design used in their surveys, the questions asked and the order they were asked. by Cory Martinez - journal.com.ph