Surveys and election day realities

At the rate Noynoy Aquino is dominating the surveys, one would have thought the eight other presidential candidates, for one reason or another, would have given up. But they haven't. Everybody is still in the thick of the fight. Maybe we should check why.

MANNY VILLAR. Of all the candidates, Manny Villar has the best reason to stay in the fight. And it is not that he has already invested so much because he has long taken into account how much he is going to spend, win or lose.

Of all the other candidates, Noynoy Aquino included, it is Manny Villar who has the best chance of winning, all the surveys notwithstanding. And that is because preparation is about 90 percent of winning. No one among the candidates has prepared as early, and as well, as Villar.

The thorough preparation of Manny Villar has allowed him to acquire the crucial factors of organization and machinery, things that do not get reflected in the surveys, which merely deal with voter preferences.

In voter preference surveys taken before the actual elections, individual respondents may prefer one candidate, who then gets all splashed up in the published results. But see how things can change drastically when organization and machinery start to kick in on election day itself.

Deep in the grassroots and far away from the random samplings that are the basis of surveys, different realities are at work, but all centered on one unequivocal truth -- that all elections are local, and where local leaders go, there go the presidential votes.

GILBERT TEODORO. Gibo enjoys an organization and machinery even more extensive than Manny Villar's. But it is doubtful if it is as cohesive and focused in one direction, being essentially a hastily-crafted merger of parties whose interests have not really gelled.

Gibo is staying in the fight because he is confident he can hold his coalition together and be able to marshal its vaunted organization and machinery at the time when it most matters -- election day.

If he can do that, his shortfall in preparation compared to Villar, and the stigma of his association with a hugely unpopular president, will give Gibo a better crack at the presidency than the current survey leader. It will be Gibo who will give Villar a run for his money.

JOSEPH ESTRADA. Erap, no matter what the surveys say, will not win the presidency again. He himself knows that. That is why the campaign does not stress him as much as it does the other candidates. When you are a spoiler, why would you quit? Especially when you are enjoying it.

DICK GORDON, EDDIE VILLANUEVA. Great believers in their own capabilities. Even greater believers in the inate goodness of Filipinos. Positive thinkers, the doomsday scenarios that the surveys paint of their candidates cannot dampen their indomitable spirits. They are in the race.

JC DE LOS SANTOS, NICK PERLAS. Like Gordon and Villanueva, but of even less stature and prominence. Despite being hobbled by the lack of everything relevant in a nationwide campaign, they stay on for the ride. JC to finish the errand, Nick for stories to tell his grandchildren.

JAMBY MADRIGAL. Jamby can go on hunger strike as long and as frequently as she wants but that will never detract from the fact that the seriousness with which she carries on her campaign is not really to win the presidency but to help deprive Manny Villar of the chance to win it.

So you see, it is never enough for surveys to either make anyone win or quit the race, especially when such surveys become so frequent it makes one wonder whether the frequency makes the results more relevant, or whether it simply indicates survey firms are making a killing.