SWS announcement: 18 April 2007
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52 Malingap St.,Sikatuna Village, Quezon City
Website: www.sws.org.ph
Tel: 924-4456, 924-4465
Fax: 920-2181
SWS files formal response to Lozano’s harassment
In a formal response filed with the Commission on Elections on April 13, SWS rejected the
petition of senatorial candidate Oliver Lozano to stop SWS from conducting further surveys as clearly
unfounded and baseless, and with no other purpose except to harass.
The Lozano petition is an attempt to put prior restraint on freedom of expression. The
invalidity of prior restraint on surveys was already settled by the Supreme Court’s decision (SWS v.
Comelec, GR No. 147571, 5 May 2001) which struck down, as unconstitutional, Sec. 5.4 of R.A.
9006 which had banned the publication of election surveys for a specific time before an election.
SWS maintains that Lozano’s act of filing the instant petition, without citing any law or rules
as legal basis, is a violation of the rule on forum shopping, and that Lozano should be assessed the
amount of P100,000 for attorney’s fees.
SWS also responded to the petition of ABAKADA GURO, a party-list group, for “disclosure
of procedure of political surveys and bases of results”, by stating that SWS procedures are
transparent and that the said party-list group had no evidence that it tried to obtain, yet was denied,
the needed information from SWS.
Attached are the petitions filed by Lozano and ABAKADA GURO, and the corresponding
responses of SWS.
April 18 - SWS files formal response to allegations in Comelec (announcement).doc