A recent social listening report from Capstone-Intel revealed that 52.7 percent of Filipino social media users support calls to halt the modernization program of the national government as the deadline for consolidation for jeepney drivers and operators is extended.
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Background
The jeepney modernization program has been in the pipeline since 2016. Although the introduction of e-jeepneys has been in the works for decades, the policy has not been implemented.
During that year, Jeepney operators and drivers issued warnings that they intended to initiate a nationwide transport strike if Congress approved a bill endorsing the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) proposed Public Utility Vehicle (PUV) phaseout program and granting emergency powers to former President Rodrigo Duterte to address the transport crisis.
In 2017, media reports revealed that the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) announced the commencement of the PUV modernization program a month after issuing the Omnibus Franchising Guidelines. The program, in addition to the phaseout, aimed to cease granting franchises to single-unit operators.
The government-affiliated Land Bank of the Philippines also allocated a P1-billion credit facility to facilitate the replacement of approximately 650 jeepneys, each costing between P1.4 million to P1.6 million. Subsequently, the Department of Trade and Industry unveiled potential designs for a modern jeepney prototype. Transport officials later asserted that the complete modernization of all PUVs would be accomplished by 2020.
In 2018, the LTFRB issued a memorandum circular instructing individual operators to either join a cooperative or corporation operating more than 15 units or form a single juridical entity by March 2019. This marked the initiation of the industry consolidation aspect of the PUV modernization program.
And as the world confronted the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities have decided to extend the consolidation and modernization program for jeepneys to give way to drivers and operators during the pandemic.
More and more extensions were made, and in March 2023, following the transport strike initiated by transport group Manibela, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called on drivers to reconsider the strike but emphasized the importance of executing the modernization program through a different approach. Marcos advocated for the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to modernize Public Utility Vehicles (PUVs) by evaluating the vehicles’ condition rather than solely relying on their age.
Subsequently, the LTFRB announced the extension of the franchise consolidation deadline, from the December 31 extended deadline, which the authorities said was “enough” for the transport sector to consolidate, to allowing unconsolidated jeepneys operate until January 31.
But as the deadline extended to April 30 recently, calls were once again made online in support of the jeepney drivers and operators who find it hard to fulfill the consolidation as they grapple with the economic burden of upgrading from traditional jeeps to e-jeepneys.
Methodology
Capstone-Intel Corp. examined the online presence of the hashtag #NoToJeepneyPhaseout in the country as a topic of discussion over the month, from October 27 2023, to January 25, 2024 by utilizing all publicly accessible posts from social and non-social media platforms in order to gather the sentiments of the public about the topic.
Facebook Performance
Capstone-Intel found that #NoToJeepneyPhaseout garnered a 120,901.7 engagement score for its 5,857 total post count, which yielded over 213,830 total reaction count. When broken down, “Facebook love” accounts for 52.7 percent of the total reactions, with 112,662. Followed by “Facebook like” with 59,002 reactions (27.6 percent), “Facebook haha” with 21,333 (10 percent), “Facebook sad” with 18,002 (8.4 percent), “Facebook angry” with 2,460 (1.2 percent), and “Facebook wow” with 371 reactions (0.2 percent).
Looking at the data, the majority of “Facebook love” reactions can be attributed to several Filipino social media users showing excessive support for the call to halt the modernization program of jeepneys in the country.
However, the “Facebook like” reactions can be seen as a neutral response – highlighting a significant number of Filipinos still undecided about the policy, adding that information dissemination needs to be done in order to translate this neutrality into a definite reaction.
Moreover, the number of posts can also be seen as a significant point to be discussed as the number of posts on Facebook is tremendous enough to drive the campaign to stop the modernization program since most of these posts are leaning towards stopping the jeepney drivers and operators’ consolidation.
Online mentions
Capstone-Intel likewise revealed that #NoToJeepneyPhaseout received 57.4 percent positive mentions, and the remaining 42.6 percent were negative mentions. This means that the article mentions about #NoToJeepneyPhaseout were mostly angled positively, but the negative mentions are also worth understanding as the numbers nearly hit the positive ones, as per the data, these negative mentions are attributed to stories mentioning the negative implications of jeepney phaseout across the country as Twitter dominated the channel in terms of the number where these negative mentions are discussed.
It is also worth noting that #NoToJeepneyPhaseout received 1,508,099 social media reach, while its non-social media reach yielded over 38,861 non-social media reach.
Top posts
In terms of top posts, the top post for #NoToJeepneyPhaseout was a Facebook post from Kabataan Partylist, calling the commuters to support jeepney drivers in their campaign to stop the jeepney modernization program. This story received a 2,192.5 engagement score.
This was followed by another post from Klasik Titos and Titas of Manila, which featured a narrative about the contribution of jeepneys in reaching one’s goal. This post yielded a total of 718.6 engagement score.
The third most engaging post for #NoToJeepneyPhaseout was another social media post from FEU Central Student Government, featuring an explainer of the recently held transport strike in the metro, yielding a total engagement score of 428.0.
The data likewise revealed that although there are a number of Filipino social media users supporting the campaign to discontinue the modernization program of jeepneys, the engagement scores it yielded show that it did not reach enough audiences as engagement scores are low. This means although the campaign is successful enough in garnering support, its reach remains a struggle in order to produce nationwide clamor.
