In his bid for the presidency, Senator Panfilo M. Lacson on Tuesday September 28 has to contend with fake news to rigged mobile text ‘’survey.’’
This as Lacson expressed concern when his campaign team and even supporters received an SMS (or mobile text) purportedly doing a survey of presidential candidates for May 2020, and then the same SMS survey stated that their chosen candidate is wrong or is considered an erroneous response.
Despite being the first to formally announce his candidacy for President, Lacson was omitted from a supposed “automated survey” among presidentiables.
Partido Reporma spokesperson Ashley Acedillo said the “survey” appears to be part of a mind-conditioning ploy to make people think Lacson is not in the running.
“The survey would ask respondents to choose from a field of seven names, but excluding Ping Lacson,’’ Acedillo said.
Acedillo pointed out that If the respondent chose Lacson, he or she would get an error message claiming that the reply is invalid.
“While we may not know who ‘commissioned’ this supposed survey until the organizers come out with the result, the effect is on the respondents, who will be conditioned to think that Senator Lacson is not running,” he added.
“While I myself am familiar with most survey methodologies, both face to face and online/automated - which means that those who commission it actually have a choice of what questions to field and which choices/answers to provide - our campaign team cannot rule out malice in this particular case since the omission is both very glaring and very suspicious,’’ he stressed.
Last September 8, Lacson and running mate Senate President Vicente “Tito” C. Sotto III declared their intention to run for President and Vice President respectively in May 2022. They were the first to do so.
Earlier, Acedillo scored the fake news circulating on social media that Lacson had withdrawn or is withdrawing from the presidential race, saying this was a sign of desperation from rivals.
“If this latest caper is designed to derail us by dissuading people from supporting Ping Lacson for the presidency, then it is the people who commissioned the survey who are fooling themselves with the erroneous data and results they will obtain. So go ahead, knock yourselves out,” he said.