You’ve seen it all over the news - the son of a former dictator is poised at winning the Philippine elections based on a scientific survey with 95% confidence interval and 2% margin of error. Days before the election, we even see big wigs from the academe and polling companies duke it out.
For an ordinary folk not involved with statistics at all, it’s just numbered hype or bash for someone they are for or against depending on whom they stand with. Without proper understanding, it’s as useful as a misinformed social media post or a fake news. So, these numbers, what do they really mean?
The survey veterans interviewed 2400 people out of 110 million people with 65 million registered voters, all in agreement with the many online sample size calculators. Based on their number of interviewees, the polling firm can say with 95% certainty that if they ask all the whole population again, between 54 to 58 percent of Filipinos (56% with 2% margin of error) will actually elect the unrepentant beneficiary of a decades-old heist done by a dictator-thief who happens to be the father of this beneficiary.
The sad truth is, majority of Filipino voters have actually forgotten the very real and established atrocities the country experienced under thief-dictatorship’s rule. We all know the son is not innocent during these dark years, and he is not apologetic at all. Rather than argue about how the figures are calculated or design surveys are designed, why do we not look at how millions of people have forgotten history? Why not investigate how even with the information around us, we still choose to be misinformed?