Print Monitors

Sharing a point of view
The Manila Standard Today seems to be looking at the elections through the lens of the administration.
Quoting Team Unity (TU) spokesman Antonio “Tonypet” Albano, the paper reported that the opposition is in trouble (“Opposition in disarray says Unity,” March 20). “The senatorial campaign of the Genuine Opposition (GO) is on the verge of collapse and the reported re-assessment of its campaign direction is a mere cover-up for its woes,” said Albano.
The self-serving analysis of Albano went without a reaction from GO, its spokesman or candidates. Yet Standard Today was able to reach out to anonymous sources who said “at least two candidates in the GO ticket are having a monopoly of media coverage, fueling dissatisfaction among the rest of the opposition senatorial bets.”

Choosing seatmates
How should one regard small but interesting tidbits in the news?
The Manila Standard Today reported last March 21 that “re-electionist senator Edgardo Angara is becoming a prima donna of Team Unity, always sticking to his own schedule and blowing his top over petty issues.”
The article focused on Angara’s reaction to the ASO (Angara, Vicente Sotto III, and Teresa Aquino Oreta) jingle. Unnamed sources reportedly said the senator “made a big issue out of it” and made sure he would never be seated next to Sotto or Oreta.
This piece of trivia might have become more interesting had the reporter asked Angara—and even Sotto or Oreta—if the report was true. And while such stories might have their own news value, reporters should never forget to look for the real issues as well.

So what’s the story?
When writing about Malacañang, The Daily Tribune often forgets about balance and ends up with a confusing story. One good example is the report on an alleged administration policy barring its senatorial candidates from discussing political issues (“Gloria gags Team Unity on political issues,” March 5).
According to the report, “(President) Arroyo and her Malacañang aides do not trust their candidates to discuss and even argue economic issues and have apparently issued a gag order on political issues that will be raised by the Genuine Opposition (GO) candidates.”
The gag order from Malacañang was supposedly issued after Team Unity (TU) candidates expressed willingness to debate with GO candidates.
But the paper, quoting anonymous sources, said the Palace asked a PR firm to come up with a press statement stating that GO and TU “had agreed to hold a debate under the auspices of a big business group in the country to be held at the Manila Hotel and only on economic issues.” Another unnamed source from the administration camp disputed the press release, the report said.
Unlike in the past, the Tribune got the side of Malacañang on the issue. Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the Palace would leave the task of commenting on issues to the TU campaign manager and the administration candidates because the President and the Cabinet preferred to focus on governance rather than dirty politics.
While giving Malacañang a chance to air its side, the Tribune could not resist taking a dig at Bunye as it reported,  “Bunye said, repeating his usual spiel over and over again…”

What surveys say
During election season, the results of surveys are often contested by candidates. Those ahead usually keep their peace while those lagging behind cite reasons to cast doubt on the polls. The situation sometimes makes reportage problematic, if not confusing.
One example is the Philippine Daily Inquirer report on the first Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey on senatorial candidates conducted from Feb. 24 to 27. The paper used as lead the reaction of former senator and candidate Loren Legarda, a consistent poll topnotcher who placed second to independent bet Sen. Francis Pangilinan in the survey (“Legarda OK at No. 2 but cites poll Pangilinan at No. 3,” March 9).
According to the report, Legarda did not mind placing second, but noted that the survey’s margin of error could easily cancel Pangilinan’s 2-percentage-point lead.  Pangilinan scored 56 percentage points against Legarda’s 54.
To bolster her argument, Legarda claimed that a confidential survey “supposedly conducted by a US pollster commissioned by Malacañang” had her leading by 13 percentage points over Manuel Villar and Pangilinan, who placed second and third, respectively.
The confidential survey was purportedly conducted in the same period as the SWS survey. It had 1,500 respondents (300 each from Metro Manila, North-Central Luzon, South Luzon-Bicol, the Visayas, and Mindanao) and a margin of error of 2.6 percent. The survey results were made available to reporters during the Genuine Opposition (GO) sorties in Mindanao, the Inquirer said.
Legarda described the SWS survey results as “quirky.” On the other hand, she said the alleged Malacañang-commissioned survey which was done by a US firm with 1,500 respondents nationwide—300 more than the usual 1,200 respondents of SWS (erroneously reported by the paper that the US survey was higher by 200)—“added authority” to the results.
The Inquirer did not check the veracity of Legarda’s claim about the American poll. It could have asked Malacañang if it really commissioned such a survey. It could have also tried to get the name of the group that did the survey and determined its reputation.
Is it really more credible than the SWS? Is the US survey organization a member of international bodies of survey research institutions like the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) or the International Social Survey Programme, two organizations of which the SWS is a member?
According to a guide to opinion polls by WAPOR and World Association of Opinion and Marketing Research Professionals, there are two main methods in choosing a truly representative sample. The first is random sampling, which uses either a list of randomly drawn addresses or email addresses or visits randomly drawn addresses or names from a list similar to a voters’ list in an area. The second is quota sampling, which involves “setting quota controls” such as age and gender and seeking out people who match the characteristics.
Here’s a list of data one should know when reporting about surveys (taken from WAPOR’s media guide to survey research):

• who commissioned the survey
• who conducted the survey
• the purpose of the survey
• the universe the survey covers
• sampling method and procedures
• non-response rate
• sample size (number of cases)
• weighing procedures (if used)
• data collection method
• when the data was collected
• the results
• characteristics of interviewers and    coders and their training
• copy of questionnaire
• results for sub-samples vs. whole sample
• precision of findings and sampling error when applicable; and
• standard, scientific use of technical terms.

Taking the time to explain
The Philippine Daily Inquirer adequately explained the concept of margin of error in a survey, which most newspapers simply assumed readers understood (“Survey shows militant party-list groups ahead,” March 20).
The story was about a Pulse Asia survey conducted from Feb. 28 to March 5 through face-to-face interviews. It had a multi-stage probability sample of 1,800 representative Filipino adults with a margin of error of plus-minus 2 percentage points at the 95-percent confidence level.
The report said: “With this margin of error, voter preference for the party-list Gabriela, for instance, may range from 4.4 percent to 8.4 percent—which, in turn, means that the group may have either two or three seats.” Party-list groups receiving two percent of the total votes cast for the party-list system are entitled to one seat in the House of Representatives. Party-list groups can have as many as three representatives.
The Inquirer quoted Pulse Asia executive director Ana Maria Tabunda to explain the concept of margin of error.  “When you get at least two percent, you already get one seat,” Tabunda said. The margin of error was like “a warning to parties in danger of losing seats should the 2-percentage points be deducted from them,” she added.

Giving voice to a vanishing tribe
The Philippine Daily Inquirer gave voice to a vanishing tribe which had been apparently forgotten by our national leaders (“Loren, Kiko, Ping don’t ring a bell for Batak folk,” March 25).
The paper said Loren Legarda and other senatorial candidates might have topped poll surveys, but their names “do not ring a bell at all among indigenous communities” like the Batak community in Palawan.
“We have heard of the coming elections. But we do not know any of the senatorial candidates. Not a single one of them. They all suffer from zero popularity in forest communities like ours,” Anacleto Bolontong, a chieftain of the Batak tribe in Sitio Tagnaya, Concepcion, one of the hinterland barangays in Puerto Princesa, told the Inquirer.
Living in abject poverty, Tagnaya Bataks urged senatorial and congressional candidates to “reach out to tribal people like the Bataks, not just to lowlanders.” “I wonder why they do not reach out to forest communities. We are also Filipinos. They should not take tribal folk for granted,” said Bolontong.
Even President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is a stranger to the Bataks who said they did not know how she looks like.
According to the Inquirer, aside from Tagnaya, there are four other Batak settlements in Puerto Princesa. All five villages are highly marginalized and have high morbidity and mortality rates.

A bashing spree
The Manila Bulletin played up the administration party’s claim that unlike Team Unity (TU), the rival Genuine Opposition (GO) is disorganized (“Disorganized GO cited,” March 7).
An out-and-out propaganda piece, the report quoted TU deputy spokesperson Antonio “Tonypet” Albano as saying that GO’s new meaning should be “Gone Out” since its guest candidate Sen. Francisco Pangilinan decided to run as independent. Albano added that because of its poorly attended campaign rallies, GO has now transformed into “NO GO” (No One Going to Opposition rallies). Predicting a sweep for the administration party, he said GO has become “GONE” (“Genuine Opposition Never Elect”).
Albano’s GO bashing spree was supposedly based on reports that the Liberal Party under Sen. Franklin Drilon was leaving the coalition “due to the case of Sen. Pangilinan.” The Bulletin did not verify the information. Neither did it ask for a reaction from the opposition camp.

A half-story
The Manila Bulletin report on the resignation of senatorial candidate Cesar Montano’s political adviser raised more questions than answers.
Citing sources close to the actor, the Bulletin said Jose Castigador Jr. resigned due to alleged meddling of some showbiz personalities in Montano’s campaign (“Cesar’s political strategist quits over ‘interference’,” March 14). The paper got confirmation from Montano through text that Castigador had indeed resigned, but did not ask why. The meddlesome showbiz personalities were likewise not identified.

So what would she do?
The Manila Bulletin gave space to the stand on poverty of Genuine Opposition’s Loren Legarda (“Loren sees gov’t failure in growth of slum colonies,” March 4).  The paper, however, stopped at the former senator’s spiel blaming the government for the increase in illegal settlers. It did not say how Legarda would address the problem in case she is elected to the Senate.

A list of accusations
The Manila Bulletin has a strange sense of balance and fairness.
The paper reported on Blanquita Pelaez’s “admission” that it was Team Unity (TU) senatorial bet Mike Defensor who was behind the money laundering complaint against former president Joseph Estrada (“Erap relieved by Pelaez turnaround on money laundering, pointing to Defensor as behind complaint,” March 21). Blanquita’s daughter Joelle filed the complaint.
The report had nothing but a string of charges against the administration and its senatorial candidates. Estrada’s lawyer, Rufus Rodriguez, claimed that Defensor, then presidential chief of staff, paid for the Pelaezes’ plane tickets to the Philippines and gave Joelle shopping money. He alleged that Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis Singson, also a TU candidate, paid for the Pelaezes’ hotel accommodations while they were in the country and provided them bodyguards.
The story drifted toward the election with JV Ejercito, son of the former president, saying Defensor’s “smear campaign” against his father posed a credibility problem to the administration party.
From there the story got a life of its own. Genuine Opposition (GO) spokesperson Adel Tamano talked about a movement against the candidacy of GO’s Alan Peter Cayetano (Anybody But Cayetano) and vote-shaving and padding operations (popularly known as dagdag-bawas) in Mindanao. For his part, Ernesto Maceda, an opposition stalwart, accused KAMPI (Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino/Partner of the Free Filipino), the President’s party, of “dangling a P5-million initial campaign kitty” to GO congressional candidates for them to transfer to the administration party. The paper did not verify Tamano and Maceda’s statements.

News or blind item?
The Philippine Chronicle story about government corruption in a multimillion-peso port project in Albay is an example of speculative reporting cum blind item (“Bicol funds scam bared,” March 16).
The article was anchored on Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s allegation that substandard materials were used in the P200-million Pantao Regional Port in the third district of Albay and the P50-million access road linking the port to the city.
Lacson’s source was “a local folk (sic) who told him about the matter.” Two officials were supposedly involved in the scam.
“Lacson, citing reports reaching him, also described one of at least two officials who ‘benefited’ from the project as an incumbent lawmaker now seeking reelection. The other, he said, is a former lawmaker who is now a ‘ranking’ member of the Arroyo cabinet,” the Chronicle reported.
Very intriguing…Is there a prize for being able to guess Lacson’s unnamed villains?

A not-so-well-oiled report
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that the Supreme Court ordered the closure of the Pandacan oil depot because the storage area of the three big oil companies—Caltex Philippines Inc. (now Chevron), Petron Corp., and Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp.—could be a terrorist target (“SC orders oil firms to leave Pandacan,” March 8).
The report said the depot, which sits on the southern bank of the Pasig River near Malacañang Palace, “supplies about half of Luzon’s fuel needs and about 82 percent of Metro Manila’s gasoline and diesel requirements.”
It did not elaborate on the possible repercussions to the economy of the depot closure. Government officials and other sectors affected by the high court decision were not asked for their reactions or opinions. In case the high court decides on the closure with finality, are there alternatives to the Pandacan oil depot? What are the costs?

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