Talk:Pulse Asia/Archives/2016

Reliability and founder controversies
There seems to be a lot of controversy surrounding Pulse Asia (as well as apparently-related pollster Social Weather Stations), resulting in a lot of unsourced IP address edits, and I don't feel I have a clear enough perspective to figure out what the truth is here. Basically, it seems there some allegations that the two groups might be controlled/founded/owned by a variety of individuals who would benefit from having control of a pollster.

The big allegation seems to be that the group is controlled or owned by relatives of Benigno Aquino III, the President of the Philippines since June 2010. The origin of these allegations seems to come from a document published in December 2009 by a Prof. Alfredo S. Sureta, Jr. of StratPOLLS Inc. The paper, titled "The maturation of Philippine democracy," called attention to blood relatives of Aquino III that were involved in the founding of the pollsters, and made allegations that their poll results were frequently incorrect.

In February 2010, Francisco Tatad, then a senatorial candidate for the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) party, made allegations that the polling in the Philippines was flawed. The Philippine Star published a piece in May 2010 that referenced Tatad's allegations, and specifically called out Pulse Asia and SWS.

In February 2013, Social Justice Society senatorial candidate Samson Alcantara reportedly accused PA and SWS of harassing him, and thus filed a restraining order against them and asked that he be pre-informed of the questions they would ask in their surveys. The polling groups apparently responded to this by filing suit against Alcantara, saying they had no obligation to meet his demands.

In October 2013, Pulse Asia made a press release responding to these allegations titled "On the Ownership and Operations of Pulse Asia" (a link to this document can be found in the Other Resources section of Pulse Asia's official website). The document basically states that Aquino III's relatives, Mr. Antonio O. Cojuangco and Mr. Rafael C. Lopa, were involved in establishing Pulse Asia in 1999, but were never involved in the research work of the organization, and no longer have shares in the company.

However, the allegations don't seem to have ended with that press release. The Manila Times made further allegations against SWS and Pulse Asia in October 2015.

Basically, I don't know what the truth here is. It seems like there are a lot of people making allegations against Pulse Asia (and SWS), but I'm not sure how reliable the sources I've found are, nor do I know if these accurately show the big picture of what's going on here. I'm a complete outsider here -- I know nothing about the Philippines, and just stumbled upon this controversy while trying to prevent vandalism. What's definitely clear to me is that this controversy needs to be included in this article, but I'm just not quite sure how to provide fair balanced coverage on this unfamiliar topic. - Iago Qnsi (talk) 19:02, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've gone ahead and added a section addressing the controversy. I feel I maintained a neutral point of view, but it's possible that I gave undue weight to some aspects of the controversy. I would really appreciate a second opinion on this. Cheers, Iago Qnsi  (talk) 19:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll try to give perspective. 2015 Manila Times article being cited is an opinion column. Usually accusations of bias spike during Philippine election season, specially when results don't favor one's preferred candidate. If you take look at the survey results of previous elections, Pulse Asia it seems has been consistently close to the actual outcome. Anton000 (talk) 02:00, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm, alright thanks. I've gone ahead and removed the last sentence referencing that 2015 Manila Times article. Do you think the entire section should go though? - Iago Qnsi (talk) 03:27, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I think section looks fine as it is. This accusation of bias based on some of its founding member relations crops up regularly. Might as well have it up there. Anton000 (talk) 15:00, 19 April 2016 (UTC)