Surprising results? Garcia says surveys may have missed key factors

MANILA, Philippines — The stark difference between the pre-election surveys and the unofficial tally for the senatorial and party-list races may be due to several important factors that would only show up during the polls itself, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairperson George Garcia said.

Garcia in a press briefing on Thursday said he is not trying to tarnish the credibility or the effectiveness of surveys, but the reality is that pre-election polls should not be considered as totally accurate as there are different factors — like the limited scope of polling firms.

“In the US, the surveys also did not reflect the results of their elections, right? So what does that mean? The surveys are not the final end result. The surveys are only a basis for how people or voters may decide. But that would not show what the final results are,” Garcia said in Filipino.

“There are so many moving factors that are not included or were not included in the surveys.  It’s not that we are rebutting the surveys, but they have their own scientific methodology, and surveys have their own methods to say that they are accurate. But let us remember, there are groups of voters who were not asked. There are respondents who might not have given the true answers,” he said.

Furthermore, Garcia said that there may be instances where respondents gave reluctant answers to surveys or voters made last-minute changes to their preferred slate.

“There are groups of voters who were asked leading and confusing questions. Some groups might not have yet thought of who they would vote for, so they just mentioned somebody for the sake of answering the survey.  So, there are many factors,” he said.

“And remember, if the survey was conducted days before the elections, what if the people’s choices change while they were going to the polling precinct? What if their preference changed the night before the elections?  So what does this mean?  There are so many moving factors,” he added.

While Sen. Christopher Go topping the Comelec’s partial and unofficial tally as of now was correctly predicted by the surveys, what happened below Go is a different story. Former Sen. Bam Aquino,  who was not included in the surveys’ Magic 12, shot up to the second spot, gaining 20.89 million votes as of 5:32 p.m. on Thursday.

READ: When pre-poll surveys go way off mark 

Below Go is Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, with 20.59 million votes.

The administration-backed Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas, which was expected to have eight or nine candidates in the winning circle, now only has six in the Magic 12.  And aside from that, all of the Alyansa candidates ranked below than what was initially predicted, which led experts to believe that the slate “underperformed.”

Days before the elections, a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed that ACT-CIS party-list Rep. Erwin Tulfo will be the front-runner, holding the top spot with 45 percent of the respondents’ votes.  His current fourth-place ranking means he lost three spots.

READ: Erwin Tulfo leads final SWS survey on Senate race 

Meanwhile, former Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III was poised to be third, but instead, slipped down to eighth. Sen. Lito Lapid was ranked fourth in surveys and is now 11th.

Meanwhile, Makati Mayor Abby Binay and Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. — who were at the seventh and 11th spots in the SWS survey — are currently out of the Magic 12, ranking 15th and 14th instead.

READ: Senate race: Go leads early count; Aquino, Pangilinan in 

Garcia again clarified that he was not against the conduct of surveys as these could gauge a candidate’s standing.  However, it should never be taken as a mirror image of election results.

“I’m not saying that you should not rely on surveys, but what I am saying is surveys are not election per se,” he said.

“Without demeaning or casting doubt on the integrity of surveys, these will remain to be the basis of our decision, the basis of whether to vote or not to vote for certain persons, and perhaps the survey can say what the status was when the poll was conducted,” he added. /jpv

 

(2025/05/15-18:58)