Why vote for a wise and intelligent leader?

In an interview with Karen Davila on ANC a few days ago, she asked Mrs. Cynthia Villar the question, “If your husband wasn’t running for President, who among the presidentiables would you vote for?” Mrs. Villar’s reply was, “Gibo Teodoro as he is the most qualified.” Hmmm, even my nine-year-old grandson knows that we should vote wise and intelligent leaders to lead our nation to a better tomorrow.

Let me remind you that the EDSA Revolt was supposed to bring changes to our country as God granted us the miracle of EDSA, however, we were supposed to do our part of the bargain in choosing the right leaders to lead us out of the economic and political morass. But instead, we elected the wrong leaders and we shouldn’t blame those whom we elected… we can only blame ourselves! Let me give a Bible quote from Deuteronomy 1:13, “Choose wise, intelligent and experienced men from each of your tribes, so that I may appoint them as your leaders.” That was God himself speaking to the Israelites and it is what God wants the Filipino people to do!          

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In the heat of this Presidential election, it seems that the battleground has shifted to the credibility of the surveys, where the two Manila based pollsters Social Weather Station (SWS) and Pulse Asia has always been taken as bible truth by everyone. However we know too well that many people are highly-suspicious of their results simply because it doesn’t give us the true picture of what the Filipino voter wants to see happen in the coming polls.

Enter the survey done by the Campaigns & Images Group (CIG) that first came to light in this corner last Feb.20th on a Saturday in a column we entitled, “A Survey That’s Worth Looking Into.” Let me point out that this survey wasn’t for public use, because this was commissioned by US and UK based companies who wanted to know the real picture of this political race. Clearly, they did not trust the SWS or Pulse Asia surveys. Back then, we clearly state that volunteers from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) helped collate this survey.

When my column came out, I was called by friends, from the various political camps, why this survey wasn’t published? My reply to them was it wasn’t in the interest of the companies that commissioned it to have it out. In truth, my friends were surprised by the depth of the CIG survey, as they broke it down from sectoral groups, age and professional groups. Hence, it was a survey that was indeed worth looking into. We published the second survey last March 5th and many pundits started noticing it… and as expected… other pundits were now finding ways to discredit it.

Then came a report obviously from the Liberal Party that said that the CIG survey was done by the PPCRV. Now I wasn’t born yesterday, that news item was obviously done by spin doctors of a political camp, which was designed to draw a negative reaction from the PPCRV. As if on cue, Henrietta de Villa, chairperson of PPCRV did issue that official denial distancing her organization from that survey as they are apolitical.

This resulted in a statement of apology from Mr. Abbey Canturias from the CIG who apologized for any troubles that the survey may have caused. But one more let me point out clearly CIG never for once said that the PPCRV did the survey. They merely used volunteers belonging to that organization in order to get a credible sampling. It is akin to using a group of Rotarians to do a survey, but it is not necessarily a Rotary project.

Why is there so much brouhaha about the CIG survey? I can only reckon that the CIG survey threw a monkey wrench on the leading Presidential contenders, specifically the Liberal Party (LP) who I strongly believe is engaging on what people say is “Mind Conditioning.” Then suddenly all their plans have gone haywire because another survey gives a clearer or better picture than the SWS or Pulse Asia survey. The big question is, which survey is more credible? A survey done with only 1,200 respondents or one that gets a sampling from 5,100? Analysts will say that the more the number, the better the sampling or the picture of the survey.

Coincidentally, while I was doing this article, I came across for the first time a live TV show entitled, “Pag Usapan Natin” over NBN Channel 4 with host Tita Carmen Ignacio co-anchored by Atty. Rolando Sibal and Atty. Rogelio Evasco and the hot topic of their show was about surveys. I was quite amused that Tita Carmen called the SWS as “Sinungaling Weather Station” while she called Pulse Asia as “False Asia”. Perhaps there is a lesson for SWS and Pulse Asia to learn from this exercise and for them to come up with a more credible survey that people would no longer be suspicious of.

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.