The country’s Department of Education (DepEd) has recently made headlines after the incumbent Vice President and DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte requested P150 million in confidential and intelligence funds for the agency in addition to its proposed 2024 budget of P758.59 billion.
Duterte then defended the proposal, claiming that education is “intertwined with national security,” adding that it is important that the country mold patriotic children “who will love and defend the country.”
In line with this, Capstone-Intel conducted a public sentiment analysis of DepEd which covered the online users’ engagement with the department and its online interaction with the confidential and intelligence funds. It also aims to understand what social media platforms contributed to the positive and negative sentiments of users regarding the issue.
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
Capstone-Intel gathered all publicly available information across various social and non-social media platforms in order to evaluate the magnitude of the sentiment of the users regarding DepEd’s confidential and intelligence funds from June 30, 2023 to July 31, 2023.
According to the data, news scored the highest percentage of mentions with 206, accounting for 27.7 percent of the total mentions during the time frame of the study. This was followed by X with 179 mentions or 24.0 percent of the total mentions. Facebook has 22.3 percent of mentions, and the Web for 10.1 percent. This shows that the news agencies talked about DepEd’s confidential funds compared to other platforms.
Sentiment analysis
Of this percentage, Capstone-Intel revealed that over 52.2 percent of social media users shared a “positive sentiment” on the matter. Meanwhile, the data showed that 47.2 percent of the users shared a “negative sentiment” about DepEd’s proposed confidential and intelligence funds.
Although there were a variety of sentiments on the topic, the research agency examined that DepEd’s proposal for confidential and intelligence funds “received significant attention” online.
Sentiments of the speaking authors
In detail, Capstone-Intel found out that the TikTok platform received the highest percentage of positive mentions for DepEd’s confidential and intelligence funds overall with 68.8 percent positive mentions. Facebook came next as pages of news agencies such as Sunstar Davao and Rappler reported eight percent positive mentions, while Twitter tallied 3.4 percent positive mentions. Meanwhile, other uncategorized platforms recorded 19.7 percent of positive mentions.
Negative sentiments
However, speaking authors from Facebook, mainly news agencies and advocacy groups reported a 47.30 percent negative sentiment followed by Twitter at 37.2 percent, and other uncategorized platforms at 6.3 percent.
Capstone-Intel suggests that it is important to note that positive mentions on news platforms can significantly impact the reputation and credibility of an organization or entity.
Topic interactions
Aside from confidential and intelligence funds, data shows that the topic “Teaching Growth” accounted for a relatively small 5.4 percent share of voice in the analyzed DepEd-related social media conversations.
However, it drove a substantial 60.2 percent of total interactions. This indicates that the topic resonated strongly in terms of engagement.
School openings represented a sizable combined share of voice at 10.3 percent for the #1 and #2 variations, and these drove a significant 18.5 percent of total interactions. The school opening variations also peaked after the education department announced the August 29, 2023 opening of classes in the Philippines. Additional education initiatives accounted for 2.8 percent of topic share and 4.8 percent of interactions.
