Topic Analysis of April 24 PilipinasDebate 2016
wpengine
May 7, 2016
Just 15 days before the Election Day, the third and final leg of the PiliPinas Debates 2016 series was held at the University of Pangasinan on April 24, 2016. The debate made its way to the top spot of trending topics in Twitter with over 1.9 million tweets during the event, which lasted for more than 3 hours.
Although a semblance of unity among netizens looked apparent with the cooperative use of the hashtags #PilipinasDebates2016 and #PilipinasDebates, there was still diversity in viewer sentiments and topics. During the second Presidential Debate, Pointwest’s Data Science Team took a closer look into Netizens’ tweets to uncover the latent topics behind the trending hashtag (Read: Topics Within a TrendingTopic – Text Analytics on 2nd Presidential Debate 2016). The team did a similar analysis for the final leg to get a fresh picture of what the audience was talking about in their tweets.
Text Analysis and Analytics
From the 828,795 extracted tweets, all the retweets were removed, which resulted to 366,819 tweets that was used in forming latent topics. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) is the algorithm used in this analysis, which groups words from the extracted tweets to form a latent topic. In order to interpret the topics, LDA can provide the top words and the top tweets (tweets with the highest probability of belonging in that topic) for each latent topic. The top words are the ones written below the topic title and the top tweets are the sample tweets that the team discovered.
LDA can give a large number of topics to be as specific as possible but in this analysis, top 6 latent topics were formed just to get a picture of the tweets. In addition, each tweet was assigned to one topic exclusively in order to graph the number of tweets per topic through time. The number of tweets were computed per hour to further analyze the topics’ peak time.
Tweets supporting Jejomar Binay
Top words: onlybinaywinner, onlybinay, binay, nog, galing
Consistency among the supporters of Binay is noteworthy. These were also apparent during the second installment of the debate series, where topics in favor of Binay first came out.
Despite all the issues VP Binay is facing, tweets with the words “galing,” “sumama,” “susuportahan” and similarly positive words still arose. These tweets supporting the vice president dominated the number of extracted tweets with a persistent increase from the start of the extraction period until it peaked between 6:00 pm and 6:59 pm, which was the start of the event. Although, it did not last too long as it experienced a continuous decline from 7:00 pm until the end of the extraction period.
Tweets:
Mahaba ang pasensya ni Binay kaya Binay for President #PiliPinasDebates2016 #OnlyBinayWinner #OnlyB1nay https://t.co/YSp7o4o5yI
— marcjp nakahara (@marcjpingris15) April 24, 2016
gus2 namin sumama. susuportahan ka nmin VP Binay. humanda na kau kay VP Binay
Only B1NAY #OnlyBinayWinner https://t.co/3zo1cHRzW1
— bertesi31 (@bertesi311) April 24, 2016
Tweets supporting Miriam Santiago
Top words: miriam, simiriamangsagot, switchmiriam, miriamparin
Fresh from her absence during the 2nd leg of the debate, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago was back along with her supporters. Her presence in the debate was indisputable as tweets supporting the so-called Iron Lady of Asia poured in when the debate started.
A long pause during her opening statement earned her tweets both of encouragement and doubt in her health condition. Mentions of Mayor Duterte also appeared in such tweets. Remembering accounts from the first leg of the debates, pairing between the two presidentiables emerged. Tweets mentioning the senator decreased as the program progressed. This trend was observed until 9:00 to 9:59 pm where tweets with the keywords “simiriamangsagot,” “switchmiriam,” and “miriamparin” reached another peak, which happened during her fast talk until her closing statement, which may have cleared the doubts about her health.
Tweets:
Shes Fierce.Shes Feisty.Shes Brilliant.Shes Miriam Defensor Santiago And hey, she eats death threats for breakfast. #PiliPinasDebates2016
— vronaldlawrence (@asdlawfgh) April 24, 2016
The Iron Lady of Asia is back!
Raise your hands if ur 4 #MIRIAM2016. If not, raise ur standards!#SiMiriamAngSagot https://t.co/dg9rYzv2jr— Jiamel Andrada (@sweet_as_jiam) April 24, 2016
Solid siguro pag nag tandem sila Sen Miriam at Mayor Duterte #PiliPinasDebates2016
— Jhazmaine (@jhazhilario) April 24, 2016
Netizens’ standpoint on the candidates’ answers
Top words: country, issue, west, sea, good, answer
There was a glimpse of the candidates’ personalities, as viewers heard their platforms when they answered questions related to West Philippine Sea, traffic, contractualization, OFWs, healthcare, Mindanao peace talks, and education.
As the presidential candidates expounded on their stand and plans for these national issues, Twitter was continuously bombarded with tweets that expressed the netizens’ own standpoint on the matter in question. Some of the answers of the candidates gathered support and was backed up by netizens actively Tweeting, while other candidates attracted criticisms on how they handled and conveyed their answers.
This topic started trending as the program started and gathered a consistent following from the netizens during the course of the whole program.
Tweets:
Poe has clear, concrete & sincere plans but I still want Duterte to win coz he’s brave in fighting corruption & crime #PiliPinasDebates2016
— IWantChange (@SkulSurvivor) April 24, 2016
Binay, stop answering as if u’re taking an essay type exam. U’re running for pres not a kid aiming for a perfect score #PiliPinasDebates2016
— samay (@samgmlnga) April 24, 2016
Only Duterte & Santiago makes sense, d rest wer jst papogi & bola! Its hi tym 4 a big change Pilipinas! Be wise pips! #PiliPinasDebates2016
— rehpot jar (@rehpotjar) April 24, 2016
Alleged bias of ABS-CBN and Karen Davila in favor of Mar Roxas
Top words: abs cbn, bias, karen, biased, and abscbnnews
The tweets asserting the bias of ABS-CBN in favor of Mar Roxas gained consistent towering attention from netizens during the debate period. Furthermore, the number of such tweets were notably higher during the fast-talk round of the debate. Prior to the debate, protests against ABS-CBN’s hosting of the debate were already rampant due to some accusations against the network being biased.
At around 8:00pm, the issue of the “screen capture” of what Secretary Mar Roxas was about to say versus the alleged advanced ticker text came about. In some other articles and posts online, this was debunked. There were also allegations of VIP treatment for the ex-DILG Secretary during the debate, i.e. giving him a different set of question during the fast-talk, and letting him finish his statements even if the time was already over.
Tweets:
Karen Davila to Mar: Sayang sir, 2 minutes is up, marami pa sana akong tanong.
Eh sa iba hay? BIAS GID TANA ABS-CBN!! #PiliPinasDebates2016— Majajaja (@pinakaMAJestic) April 24, 2016
Bias tlga ABS! Bt iba tnong ky roxas tpos di p sinisita! Ano to vip treatment? Asan ang hustisya? #PiliPinasDebates2016
Duterte— lizet alcaraz (@liezettejna) April 24, 2016
Netizens Describing Their Ideal President
Top Words: binay, grace, mar, miriam, and duterte.
At around 7:00pm to 7:59pm, tweets about the Filipino people’s hope to have an ideal leader were on the rise. While the presidentiables were busy answering questions regarding various issues and asking each other questions during the face-off segment, netizens were occupied with their newly developed fascination — presidential fusion.
The twitter-verse listed down each candidate’s selling points beneficial to the country’s development, and fused them to bring out the perfect leader they could possibly have. The search for a complete-package president reached its peak during this time and then declined as hours passed by.
Tweets:
Totoo nga. Kailangan natin yung talino ni Miriam, tapang ni Du30 at puso ni Grace Poe. Tapos pera ni Binay #PiliPinasDebates2016
— Jane (@_janecamz) April 24, 2016
PERFECT NA PANGULO:
•Utak ni Miriam
•Gawa ni Duterte
•Puso ni Poe
•Lakas sa Masa ni Binay
•Outfit ni Roxas#PiliPinasDebates2016— Inday Dyosa ツ (@Inday_Dyosa) April 24, 2016
Opinions on Presidentiable Promises
Top words: Pangako, tax, traffic, plano, and salita
“Enough! Enough of those promises,” the battlecry of the Filipinos at this stage of the election campaign. Filipinos are tired of hearing the same promises, again and again, assessed the capacity of the future leaders to handle the country’s unceasing problems. Aside from their seemingly unrealistic promises, twitter netizens questioned the inefficient performance of the candidates from their past posts dragging their credibility down. A tweet asked if some presidentiables needed to be president before they performed what was expected of them.
Tweets:
Magaganda nmn lht ng hangarin nla para bansa, pero para saakin si Madam Miriam lng ang makaka tupad ng mga sinabi niya #PiliPinasDebates2016
— denver louie (@louiedenver) April 24, 2016
Kailangan nyo pa b muna magng presidente pra tuparin yng mg plano niyo Binay at Roxas. Hello VP & DOTC sec the hell #PiliPinasDebates2016
— Queen Pia Mia ♚ (@KweeniesofHeart) April 24, 2016
Making Sense of the Tweets
Third debate with 5 candidates, 7 national issues, hundreds of thousands of twitter users, all with different perspectives and stand on the issues. It was challenging to capture with much certainty all the sentiments posted, but the 6 topics gave a peak into the debate’s progress, and the twitter-verse’s pulse against it.
The third installment of the debate series can be considered a success in terms of focusing the attention of the Filipino people to the actual problems of the country, and the corresponding statements from the candidates.
The topics in the 3rd debate were more focused, as a whole, on the qualifications and platforms of the candidates, and the stand of the people on the real issues of the country. Whereas in the 2nd debate, 3 of the 6 topics in Twitter — the rants on the delay of the debate, how VP Binay insisted on bringing documents to the debate, and the deaf interpreter and host of the debate, were irrelevant to the real-world issues that were asked during the debate proper.
Although there were concerns about the impartiality of how the debate was handled by ABS-CBN, the reactions of the people in Twitter demonstrated their preference on substance over form. According to the data, tweets showed that people regarded the final leg of the debate as an avenue of information than mere entertainment.
Starting from the first leg of the series on February 20, 2016 until the final leg, a lot of Filipinos followed and got involved in the debate series. Social media was used as their primary platform in expressing their response and reactions regarding the debate. Such posts, which trended over a period of time, may have had some impact, but only the 9th of May 2016 will truly change the course of history of the country.
In the end, the Filipino people need to cast their votes, and vote wisely.