PRESS STATEMENT ON ISSUES AGAINST PAHAYAG

29 Aug

PRESS STATEMENT ON ISSUES AGAINST PAHAYAG

This addresses certain issues raised against PUBLiCUS Asia, Inc,’s PAHAYAG independent poll and the results of its PAHAYAG Pilot Study which were launched to the public on August 28, 2017.

Vox Survey and PAHAYAG Poll

Why did PUBLiCUS develop its mobile survey app and the PAHAYAG omnibus poll?

PUBLiCUS wanted to develop a survey and insight platform designed to deliver a fast turn-around time for survey results and provide a more accurate, more actionable picture of what people think. It is crucial to keep up to date with the voice of the people and draw timely, useful and relevant data analyses from them.

Who developed and funded the platform?

PUBLiCUS’ mobile survey application called Vox Survey was developed for PUBLiCUS by The App Factory. PUBLiCUS solely funded the app development.

Recognizing the advantages and the importance of computer-assisted personal interviews (CAPI) in survey data collection where there are no interviewer routing errors within the survey questionnaire, there is customization/automatic text substitution of questions, there is inconsistent response check capability, the electronic data format which removes the need for data encoding, and automatic randomization which reduces potential order bias in lists, among others, PUBLiCUS is leveraging on technology through Vox Survey and CAPI in order to deliver results in real-time while they are still relevant and top of mind, so that analysts react to current as against dated survey data.

PUBLiCUS wants to show that CAPI-based surveys are definitely faster than the traditional pen and paper (PAPI) surveys which take around 30 days from fieldwork to release of results. Most of all, PUBLiCUS wants to show the top commercial survey firms in the country that a faster turn-around time of survey results is possible and doable.The field work for the PAHAYAG Pilot Study with 1,500 respondents nationwide was completed in 3 days, while the results with analysis were released after 11 days.

Sampling and Methodology

Our sample is 1,500 registered voters nationwide, with equal number of males and females, from urban barangays in key cities covering ALL regions. For this pilot study we sampled cities by design because we are after connectivity so that transmittal of completed interviews via the internet is assured.

Distribution of sample size is as follows:

NCR: 300

North Central Luzon: 300

South Luzon: 300

Visayas: 300

Mindanao: 300

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TOTAL: 1,500

Instead of the usual breakdown of the survey sample into NCR, Balance of Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, Luzon was further broken down to North Central (NCLA) and South Luzon (SLA). SLA voters behave differently from voters in the other Luzon areas and also has the biggest total registered voters. PUBLiCUS wanted to give equal representation to these two areas of Luzon in the sample size. Computer-assisted face-to-face personal interviews were done using a structured questionnaire (through a computer tablet).

Love, Care Index

Why did PUBLiCUS introduce this metric?

PUBLiCUS wants to bring Emotional Quotient (EQ) into the way leaders are measured in polls and the chief components of EQ are self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. There are no complicated mathematical computations involved in this index. The variables used for this have already been measured in two previous nationwide surveys of PUBLiCUS on the Psychographics of Filipino Voters in 2009 and 2015. Those studies are already in book form. The variables from those studies were used to measure Love and Care in PAHAYAG (as pre-coded choices). So, this is actually not new. PUBLiCUS is running it so it can obtain longitudinal data. What’s new in this present study is love and care was measured with the top 5 government officials of the country and with previous presidents, from Corazon Aquino to Benigno Aquino III.

Decisiveness Rating

What is this new “rating”?

This is a new metric that measures perceived decisiveness of leaders. Decisiveness is about speed and soundness of decisions. Executives perceived as indecisive or poor decision makers will quickly lose the confidence and commitment of their team. And the best leaders make sound, timely, defensible decisions especially in times of crisis or uncertainty. The Decisiveness Rating is a leadership question, not an institutional question. Awareness and approval ratings are standard survey metrics. Decisiveness isn’t being measured until PAHAYAG poll did. PAHAYAG will be constantly measuring Decisiveness for longitudinal data.