A recent social listening report from Capstone-Intel Corporation revealed that over 36 percent of Filipinos laugh about the International Criminal Court (ICC), adding to the recent developments between the ICC and its move to investigate former President Rodrigo Duterte in connection with the latter’s controversial war on drugs campaign.
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Background
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on November 24, 2023 that the administration is thinking of rejoining the ICC.
In an ambush interview in Taguig City, Marcos was pressed for his opinion to a House of Representatives debate over enabling ICC investigators to probe the drug war under former President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration.
The court in The Hague allowed its prosecutor’s plea to restart an inquiry into the killings in January, after the probe was paused in November 2021 at the request of the Philippines, who maintained that its own institutions were capable of prosecuting the alleged crimes.
According to official government records, Duterte’s drug war has killed at least 6,000 people. However, several human rights organizations and defenders believe the figure might surpass 20,000.
Despite Duterte’s withdrawal of the Philippines from the Court, the ICC announced it would investigate the pervasive killing. While the Philippines was subject to the Rome Statute, the ICC could still investigate alleged crimes.
Vice President Sara Duterte, the former president’s daughter, ruled such a probe unlawful, highlighting that allowing the ICC to enter the Philippines “not only patently unconstitutional but effectively belittles and degrades our legal institutions.”
Methodology
Capstone-Intel Corp. examined the ICC’s online presence for one year, including how posts were reacted to by social media users from November 24, 2022, to November 24, 2023, by utilizing all publicly accessible posts from social and non-social media platforms in order to gather the sentiments of the public about the said topic.
Facebook Performance
Capstone-Intel found that for over a year, the ICC garnered a 163,995.4 engagement score for its 5,491 total post count, which yielded over 884,931 total reaction count. When broken down, “Facebook like” accounts for the majority of the reactions, with 52.8 percent of the total reactions, with 466,825. Followed by “Facebook haha” with 320,749 reactions (36.2 percent), “Facebook love” with 77,815 (8.8 percent), “Facebook angry” with 11,015 (1.2 percent), “Facebook wow” with 5,225 reactions (0.6 percent), and “Facebook sad” with 3,302 reactions (0.4 percent).
Looking at the data, the intensity of “Facebook haha” reactions can be attributed to Filipino audiences laughing or either disagreeing with the ICC’s move to investigate the former president’s war on drugs campaign,
Meanwhile, the bulk of like reactions can be seen as users’ approval for the ICC’s inquiry against Duterte.
Online mentions
Capstone-Intel likewise revealed that ICC got 95 percent negative mentions, and the remaining 5 percent were positive mentions. It is also worth noting that the ICC received 34 million social media reach and a non-social media reach of 55 million.
Top posts
The top post for the ICC was a news report from 24 Oras narrating the possibility of issuing an arrest warrant, receiving a 4,289.5 engagement score. This was followed by another news report from 24 Oras, featuring a report that tackles the European Parliament’s advice to the Philippine government to release former senator Leila De Lima and rejoin the ICC. This post yielded a total of 3,432.2 engagement score.
The third most engaging post for the ICC was also a news report from CNN Philippines,” which highlights the warning given by Department of Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla to the ICC, yielding a total of 1,937.6 engagement score.
