Bagumbayan Party presidential bet Richard Gordon Thursday filed damages with application for temporary restraining order (TRO) and writ of preliminary injunction against two survey firms before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (QCRTC) for allegedly publishing fraudulent, biased and defective survey methods that portrayed him and his running mate “unwinnable” contenders.

In his complaint, Gordon said the Social Weather Station (SWS) and Pulse Asia made it appear that he has a measly two to three percent rating ranking him fifth in the presidential derby.

His vice-presidential running mate former Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Bayani Fernando ranked fourth in the race.

Based on his investigation, Gordon said, the survey firms omitted to use statistically and scientifically sound sampling protocols but used methodologies considered by other countries as flawed, outdated and unreliable.

The 26-page complaint also said that the survey also limited the choice of the respondents to two candidates omitting the names of Gordon and the other presidential candidates.

Gordon added that the defendants have not covered the entire country by skipping regions and provinces while failing to observe professional standards and ethical practices of international survey firms.

He noted that SWS and Pulse Asia, without regard to acceptable statistical and scientifically sound sampling protocols, have not selected their respondents randomly from the voters list of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) but only from passers-by or random households.

The Bagumbayan presidential aspirant said that the defendants relied on face to face interviews, a methodology long discarded in 1980 as being fatally flawed and grossly inaccurate by social survey science and reputable pollsters.