PULSE Asia on Monday disowned the claim of presidential bet Rodrigo Duterte that he topped a March 21 to 25 survey that the survey firm conducted among 4,000 registered voters.
Ronald Holmes, Pulse Asia Research Inc. president, issued a one-page disclaimer after learning about a supposed survey report
posted by an Emmanuel Piñol on his Facebook account quoting one Pompee La Viña’s statement.
“It has come to our attention that a survey allegedly conducted from March 21-25, 2016, for ABS-CBN is being attributed to Pulse Asia,” Holmes said in his statement.
“We did not conduct said survey. We don’t conduct surveys during Holy Week, Holy Thursday and Good Friday, in particular.
“We urge the media, in particular, and the public, in general, to refer to our website at pulseasia.phpulseasia.ph or our official Facebook and Twitter page for our official media releases.”
Holmes made his statement even as the camp of presidenfial candidate Grace Poe called on the electorate to be vigilant against propaganda.
“Recently, [a] supposed Pulse Asia survey with field dates March 21-25, 2016, has been circulated to pre-condition the minds of the public and set a false trend,” said Valenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian, Poe’s spokesman.
He was referring to the Pulse Asia survey showing Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte as the supposed frontrunner in the presidential race.
Piñol is one of Duterte’s closest allies in Mindanao.
According to La Viña, Duterte topped the ABS-CBN-commissioned Pulse Asia survey after gaining the nod of 26 percent of the 4,000 respondents.
Peter Tiu Laviña, Duterte’s official spokesman, did not reply if he was in any way related to La Viña, or to Jose Gabriel La Viña, in his FB account.
“A Pulse Asia survey taken March 21-25, after the Supreme Court decision on [Senator Grace] Poe and the second presidential debate in Cebu, shows Mayor Rody Duterte is now clearly in the lead,” La Viña reported.
“The consolidation of [the] Mindanao and Cebu/Visayas forces behind Duterte has not yet been factored in[,] so I expect the lead to widen even more in the next survey. As I had expected, [Liberal Party standard bearer Manuel] Roxas [II] has overtaken [Vice President Jejomar] Binay after the latter’s dismal showing in the debate. The Roxas camp[,] which has access to more frequent and detailed polling[,] must have known this already.”
After Pulse Asia posted its disclaimer, Piñol, a former Cotabato governor and sports columnist, admitted committing a mistake when he
posted La Viña’s “report.”
“A survey result purportedly coming from Pulse Asia and posted by Pompee La Viña[,] which showed that presidential front runner Rody Duterte was ahead of Grace Poe[,] has been disowned by Pulse Asia. While we understand that there was no intention on the part of Pompee La Viña to mislead the public, the posting of the unconfirmed survey result was obviously wrong,” his message read.
“As the owner to this page which also posted the said “fake” survey results, I apologize for [the] publication of the wrong survey. I should have double-checked the data before I posted it.”