“Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?—Robert Orben

INTUITIVE Filipinos will agree that election results in the Philippines are more or less already “known” the moment prominent survey firms start to reveal their respective survey results even if, in the case this year, the May 12 general election is still about two months away.

Big survey outfits have always “predetermined” the outcome of any Philippine election especially in the senatorial race this year, where 12 seats will be contested.

To compound the matter, most of these survey outfits have already reported that media and entertainment celebrities are expected to dominate the senatorial contest.

The same names of possible “winners” kept on showing up again and again as if the survey networks have hired Nostradamus in their operations.

Thus, we are saying that the 2025 election, at least in the senatorial race, is almost over—except for the actual voting that will be done on May 12, and only the Commission on Elections (Comelec) can officially declare the winners.

This could also be the reason why Filipinos were split on their opinions whether allowing these survey companies to constantly release survey results months and weeks before the actual voting day will help guide the voters to pick the right occupants in congress’ upper chamber.

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We are zeroing in on the senators because those who will be elected in this election will serve until 2031, and will join the winners of the 2022 election to form the Senate’s delegation to the 20th Congress of the Philippines, with the senators elected in 2022 serving until 2028.

If survey firms play monkey business (we pray they won’t) and favor candidates who aren’t worthy to sit in the senate but “know how” to worm their way into the winning column (you know what we mean), the so-called taong bayan will again end up the real losers for having these cretins instead of the real statesmen and really brilliant senators.

This could be the gist of Comelec’s recent move calling to amend its latest resolution regulating survey firms conducting election polls so it can be fully enforceable in time for the 2028 presidential elections.

According to Comelec Chair George Garcia, “the Comelec is very much willing to amend our guidelines, to modify and change (provisions of the resolution), depending on the outcome of our discussion with the survey firms.”

Pollsters and research groups met with the Comelec earlier ‘February 27to iron out provisions of Comelec Resolution (CR) No. 11117, which mandates that only pre-registered entities are authorized to conduct and publicly disseminate election surveys.

They reportedly questioned, among others, Section 2, which mandates them to register with Comelec’s Political Finance and Affairs Department before they can conduct any election survey. They said the provision could be used for censorship.

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Among those who attended the signing of the pledge of commitment and the launching of Task Force Respect (Regulation and Enforcement of Survey Practices for Election Credibility and Transparency) at the poll body’s headquarters in Intramuros, Manila, were representatives from Social Weather Stations (SWS), Pulse Asia Research Inc., Ibon Foundation, Marketing and Opinion Research Society of the Philippines, Publicus Asia, Tangere, Laylo Research Strategies and WR Numero.

Surveys are supposedly lengthy and require more time to respond as compared to a poll. Many types of data analytics algorithms are reportedly applied on the responses collected and the insights generated are conveyed to various departments of an organization.

If we have a lot of time to generate reports and share it with our team members, surveys make a good choice for us.

Both poll and survey are reportedly used to gather feedback and choices of the target audience. In the same industry, both poll and survey can be used to gain insights that will help to make better decisions.

Online polls are also reportedly created during elections and give insights on the probability of particular candidates and political parties winning the seat.

This will give them an idea of how popular their party candidates are in that region. According to QuestionPro, election polls can help de-code what are the choices of different sections of the society, what concerns them most and what do they wish from the future government.

The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed