Comelec threatens to go after SWS, Pulse Asia other pollsters

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Commission on Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. has threatened to file criminal charges against Social Weather Stations (SWS), Pulse Asia and other survey firms unless they submit their list of subscribers to the Comelec.

Brillantes reminded the survey firms on Saturday about the election body’s order requiring them to submit their list of subscribers.

He said the survey firms had yet to comply with the Comelec resolution directing them to identify the “commissioners, payors and subscribers” of the pre-election surveys they conducted since February 12.

“Our requirement is for survey companies to report to us the names of their subscribers. They have yet to comply with that,” Brillnates said in an interview.

He said the names submitted to the Comelec would not be made public but were meant only for the poll body to review.

The SWS had said it would challenge the order in the Supreme Court.

Brillantes, however, said the Comelec did not get any order from the Supreme Court stopping the implementation of the resolution.

“If they did not get [a temporary restraining order], they should comply. We just have to remind them,” Brillantes said.

He said survey companies that continued to defy the Comelec could be charged with committing an election offense.

“There would be criminal liability.  Maybe they just forgot,” Brillantes said.

The Comelec issued the resolution after Pulse Asia and SWS, in a public hearing on April 16, explained how their surveys were financed but refused to identify the subscribers.

Brillantes had insisted the Comelec should have oversight over pre-election surveys because they affected public opinion in the run-up to elections.

During the Comelec hearing, the SWS insisted that the law did not require survey firms to disclose their survey subscribers.

“The law does not require us to disclose the subscribers precisely because it is our position that they did not pay for the surveys,” said SWS lawyer Albert Bacungan.

“It is the position of SWS that when we speak of a subscriber like a subscriber in a newspaper, the subscriber is not responsible for the news report in that newspaper. Now, a survey subscriber is likewise not accountable to the public for survey results released on the basis of non-commissioned questionnaire items. That is our position,” he said.