SURVEYS AS A POLITICAL TOOL

by Bernie Lopez

 

On the third week of July, headlines screamed in many dailies how hunger had declined significantly according to an SWS survey. The survey had a sampling of 1,200. The conclusion was that 2.6 million households had nothing to eat this quarter compared to 3.4 last quarter or 23%. The 'decrease' was welcomed by Malacanang as proof of its 'success' to mitigate hunger. Howver, any high school student can see such microscopic sampling leading to macroscopic conclusions are absurd.

 

The June 27-30 SWS survey showed that 14.7% of the 1,200 household respondents experienced hunger, down from 19% last February and November. Then the mile-wide leap was made, a conclusion based on this meager sampling of 1,200 that 2.6 million households had nothing to eat at least once during the quarter period.

The survey goes on to show that hunger in Metro Manila was much higher at 22%, but then it clarifies that this was due to a higher margin of error from a smaller sampling of 300. By simple ratio, a sampling of 300 for Metro-Manila's 7 million is bigger than the 1,200 for the nation's 7 million. Both samplings represent a miniscule cross section of millions. In other words, the survey is inconclusive. In philosophy, they call it 'non sequitur', it does not follow.

 

In his new column, Mahar Mangahas of SWS is protesting against the ban on surveys. Of course, he owns SWS. If surveys mislead and deceive rather than inform, then the ban should stay in place. SWS has a following from the opposition when its election surveys favored the GO over the TU. Commissioned surveys, especially during election, should also be banned as a conflict of interest. If you do not please your client, you may not get paid. That is the way people will look at commissioned surveys.

 

GMA earlier criticized SWS survey methodology in its hunger statistics because it yielded negative PR for government. A similar government survey had a better sampling of 12,857, more than ten times the SWS sampling, but even this was not enough to lead to conclusions about 70 million Filipinos.

 

Surveys are an inexact science for several reasons. De La Salle economist Michael Alba says "these are just guesses, although done in a scientific manner". First, a nation of millions with a complex concentration of poor scattered across urban and rural pockets defies any sampling ratio and methodology, as explained. Second, hunger is a very subjective term which respondents can easily pass mistaken judgement on. There are wide gray areas between total, moderate and severe hunger, the categories used by the government. Third is conflict of interest. A government should not make surveys that impacts on its image. Independent surveys are more reliable but if they are truly independent.

 

Even if we assume that there was no effort on the part of SWS to please GMA in the sudden turn around in its latest hunger survey, which was not commissioned, still there is a need to somehow come up with criteria on the independent character of surveys. The potential to manipulate is always there. First is selection. If you interview less poor households, hunger trends go down. Second is reliability. Can survey people just invent their data and let people sign a piece of paper that they were interviewed? Third is geographic selection. Poor provinces will yield more hungry people.

REMOVE VAT TO DISPEL HUNGER.

 

The two basic variables to hunger incidence are food prices and employment. Higher GDP has nothing to do with mitigating hunger because of the rich-poor gap. Right now, food prices have been consistently rising faster and higher than salaries in the last few years, if there is a salary to talk about. The impact of VAT on basic food is awesome since you need gasoline which has a VAT to transport food anywhere. There is also double and triple taxation since you tax certain agricultural inputs. In other words, the government, in its obsession for higher tax revenues, is inducing the very hunger it is trying to mitigate. If you compare what GMA spends for hunger (P1.65 billion for a nationwide feeding program), you will note that this is a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of billions the government is raking in silently from VAT. The government's "community-based food production program in Metro-Manila is peripheral and has little impact and is simply a PR game.

 

The best hunger mitigation program is to remove VAT on gasoline, whose global price is rising phenomenally the past few months. Surveys are just a 'game' politicians play. They are part of a face-lifting effort, a PR tool, a way to please the hungry, so they do not protest.

GMA can cancel the feeding program, which is a dole out anyway that induces more dependence, and simply remove the VAT on oil. To stave off hunger, give the fisherman a rod not a fish, and the farmer a plow not a sack of rice. That way, we can easily conquer hunger and poverty.

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