SWS surveys are surreal: Filipinos are citizens, not customers
Credit to Author: YEN MAKABENTA| Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 16:44:11 +0000
First Word
AFTER long study, I have settled on a word to describe the satisfaction surveys of SWS (Social Weather Stations): “surreal.”
This must be said. The SWS satisfaction surveys are truly a Filipino innovation in public opinion research.
In nearly all countries in the world, public opinion research firms conduct job approval surveys or surveys of public attitudes towards presidents or prime ministers.
It’s only in market research, to assist firms in the marketing of products, that pollsters conduct satisfaction surveys.
Nowhere in the United States or in Europe will you find a pollster surveying the satisfaction of citizens with their presidents or prime ministers. They survey strictly citizen opinion on whether they approve or disapprove of their leaders’ performance at their jobs.
When reputable pollsters inquire about satisfaction, it is usually when they measure the level of citizen confidence or optimism about the direction their country is taking.
It is in this context that I say the SWS surveys are surreal or weird. Instead of asking whether a citizen respondent approves or disapproves of President Duterte’s performance as president, SWS asks whether the citizen is satisfied or dissatisfied with DU30 as president.
Satisfaction on policy issues
It gets even weirder when SWS inquiries about citizen satisfaction on specific policy issues, about 20 of them.
Mercifully, SWS held back from asking respondents the following questions:
1. Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the government’s killing of drug suspects/users in the war on drugs?
2. Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with DU30’s treatment of women?
3. Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with DU30’s frequent attacks on the Catholic Church and Catholic clergy?
How would you answer such questioning?
In its all-purpose Filipino questionnaire, SWS asks the respondent this question:
“Gaano po kayo nasisiyahan o hindi nasisiyahan sa pamamalakad ng kasalukuyang administrasyon nasyonal tungkol sa mga programa o aksiyon?
Masasabi by ninyo na kayo ay lubos nasisiyahan, medyo nasisiyahan, hindi tiyak kung nasisiyahan o hindi, medyo hindi nasisiyahan, o lubos na hindi nasisiyahan?”
On this basis, SWS rated the performance of the Duterte administration as either ‘excellent’, ‘very good’, ‘good’ or ‘moderate.’
In its fourth quarter survey in December last year, SWS reported that it found 76 percent of adult Filipinos satisfied, 15 percent neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, and 9 percent dissatisfied with the general performance of the Duterte administration, for a net satisfaction rating of +66.
If US pollsters reported such a rating on the Trump administration, Trump would probably tweet the Almighty his thanks for such a happy turn of events.
A note on surrealism
In the Philippines, President Duterte gets stratospheric ratings because our principal survey firm, SWS, refuses to conduct the standard job approval survey that is used in advanced countries and around the world. It insists on conducting its idiosyncratic ‘satisfaction’ survey, which cannot arrive at a realistic picture of public attitudes to the presidency, because citizens are being asked the wrong questions.
It is because of this that I label SWS research and its results as ’surreal.’
I have looked up the word in both English and American English dictionaries. Most of them refer you to the cultural movement early in the 20th century, which launched surrealism in art and literature.
Macmillan dictionary’s explanation of the word is: “something surreal is so strange that you cannot believe it is real.”
Example: “These surreal events eventually led to police arresting the teacher in her classroom.”
Longman’s explanation is: “a situation or experience that is surreal is very strange and difficult to understand, like something from a dream.”
Collins defines the word as ‘dreamlike.’
The term becomes clearer when you look up the word ‘surrealism’ in Wikipedia.’ Here is wiki’s introductory word on surrealism:
“Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. Artists painted unnerving, illogical scenes with photographic precision, created strange creatures from everyday objects, and developed painting techniques that allowed the unconscious to express itself. Its aim was to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality”.
Works of surrealism feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement.
Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory.”
Citizens, not customers
If you know the name ‘Salvador Dali,’ you will comprehend what surreal means.
Is it fitting to call the SWS satisfaction surveys “surreal”?
It is fitting because SWS has substituted a customer satisfaction survey for a job approval survey, which the public was likely expecting. The trick is weird.
Respondents in SWS surveys are citizens, not customers.
President Duterte is not a product for market research. Certainly not a detergent.
A citizen is a sovereign in our constitutional system of government, and surely more than a customer.
Customer satisfaction research is that area of marketing research which focuses on customers’ perceptions with their shopping or purchase experience.
Companies are interested in understanding what their customers think about their shopping or purchase experience, because finding new customers is generally more costly and difficult than servicing existing or repeat customers.
Is it valid to transfer this method of market research to public affairs?
No, because the subject of public affairs is different. The survey results will be deceptive.
Job approval ratings
None of this can replace the validity and relevance of the time-tested method of public opinion research in public life: the presidential job approval rating.
It remains the standard of public opinion research.
Presidential job approval ratings were introduced by George Gallup in the late 1920s (most likely 1927) to gauge public support for the president of the United States during his term. An approval rating is a percentage determined by a polling which indicates the percentage of respondents to an opinion poll who approve of a particular person or program.
Like most surveys that predict public opinion, the approval rating is subjective. Many unscientific approval rating systems exist that skew popular opinion. The job approval rating remains generally accepted as a statistically valid indicator of the comparative changes in the popular United States mood regarding a President.
In the latest public opinion poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports on US President Donald Trump’s job performance, Rasmussen reported that Trump had registered 51 percent approval and 48 percent disapproval.
It asked survey respondents the question: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president?”
It is the same question being asked in many other countries.
But here in the Philippines, Filipinos are not asked the question.
Do we really not want to know whether the people approve or disapprove of DU30’s performance as president?
It’s only the SWS which is saying that we prefer to be asked whether we are satisfied or not with his performance.
yenmakabenta@yahoo.com
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