Study Shows Public Sentiments to Ninoy Aquino ‘Generally Positive’
The commemoration of the death of former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” S. Aquino Jr. has been hailed as a national holiday in the Philippines, according to Republic Act No. 2956. However, in the midst of the current political climate, the conversation may have swayed differently, considering the history of the holiday and the current administration. Capstone-Intel Corporation looks into the sentiments of online users regarding the holiday. Capstone-Intel is a high-impact research company that uses innovative research technologies, tools, and methods to convert data and information into breakthrough insights and actionable intelligence outputs. It is committed to helping its clients solve problems, find solutions, grow markets and constituencies, build reputations, navigate risks, manage crises, and be the country’s leading private research and intelligence agency. Methodology On August 14, 2022, Capstone-Intel utilized its social media listening tools to garner data from publicly available accounts, posts, and overall mentions on Facebook in the Philippines. The specific keywords “Ninoy Aquino” and “August 21 movement” were identified and scanned. This was done in order to conduct a sentiment analysis of the data gathered through reactions, channels, influencers, and word clouds. For this study, what was counted in the analysis were the number of posts, shares, reactions, numbers of comments, and overall engagement score. Added on are insights on the overall content posted, the channels they were posted on, as well as the sentiment of the posts that were scanned. Results from Facebook On the day that the scan was conducted, the social listening tools were able to gather 351,210 unique posts that were then shared 153,151 times on Facebook. These were posts that had the keyword “Ninoy Aquino.” Per day, it was noted in the data that there were an average of 23 new posts. These posts collectively have a reaction count of 1,923,322, as well as an engagement score of around 380,604.2. On the other hand, for the keyword “August 21 movement” only found 6 posts that mentioned this specific set of keywords. Among these posts, they have a collective 84 comments, 33 shares, a reaction count of 791, and an overall engagement score of 120.5. The average value of their posts per day is .016, which seems to indicate that their posting is not daily but has a more sparing schedule instead. Reaction Distribution for ‘Ninoy Aquino’ Of the 1,923,322 total reactions garnered for the keyword “Ninoy Aquino,” 47.9 percent are Like reactions, 19.8 percent are Love reactions, 29.8 percent are Haha reactions, and the remaining 1.1 percent fall under the category Angry reactions. The data shows that, generally, the posts that mention this keyword are more positive than negative, according to the reaction percentages. Reaction Distribution for ‘August 21 Movement’ For the other keyword “August 21 Movement”, there were only around 791 reactions. 60.6 percent of these fall under the Like reaction, 5.1 percent of these are Love reactions, the next 33.5 percent are Haha reactions, and finally the last .8 percent are Wow reactions. Considering the percentages of each reaction on the posts, the data shows once again a generally positive reaction from the audience. Top Stories and Sources for ‘Ninoy Aquino’ For this particular keyword, Ninoy Aquino’s top story is a post from the Facebook Page of Senator Imee R. Marcos. It is a posted video of former senator Juan Ponce Enrile with current chief of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), Gen. Ricardo De Leon and former commanding general of the Philippine Army General Jaime Delos Santos discussing the alleged connection of Ninoy Aquino with the New People’s Army. This post has garnered an engagement score of 16368.3, an overall count of 40136 reactions to the post. It should be noted as well that the fan count of this particular Facebook page is around 1,950,250. This is then followed by posts from SMNI News and CinemaBravo, who were both able to reach a total of 12,854.9 and 12,457.2 for their engagement scores, respectively. SMNI also continues to be the main contender for the top source for the keyword “Ninoy Aquino” as they have the highest engagement score across their 22 posts at a value of 23,934.7. Following closely behind are Philippine Star and News5 whose engagement scores are 19,981.2 and 19,352.6 respectively. Top Stories and Sources of ‘August 21 Movement’ For the second keyword “August 21 movement”, the top post comes from NET25, reporting about a group of individuals that were withheld by the police in Quezon City for trying to avoid the barrier set up by the police. This particular post was able to garner an engagement score of 89.2, along with a total of 646 reactions. NET25’s Facebook page–it should be noted—has a fan count of around 808293 users. This is then followed by a post from the Lalaban Tayo Facebook page, and Cafe Bossa Candon who have an engagement score of 25.4 and 4.6 respectively. These are both generally lower than the scores of the previous keywords, but it is also noted that they have a smaller user group for their specific target audience.
