Clutch MediaTech

President Marcos' first overseas trip as the head of state garnered massive amounts of sentiments from Filipino netizens. It got both support and heat, firing up thousands of engagements and hundreds of conversations.

Clutch MediaTech's proprietary sentiment scanning capability pried into these conversations to know what the Filipino people has to say. Did Filipinos find the trip insensitive to the country's current economic struggles? Or were they supportive of the president's diplomatic endeavors? Read on to know more.

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The biggest chunk of the sentiment share about the state visit are well-wishes from his loyal supporters, comprising 26%.

Interestingly, the second sentiment share talks negatively of the trip. 23% are critical of President Marcos for making a family trip to Indonesia amidst the country's economic struggles—many deemed the trip untimely and insensitive.

Despite this, 12% still asserted that the president's state visit is completely valid as it is his presidential duty. In line with this, 11% were proud of President Marcos for sealing in multi-billion dollar investment deals in Indonesia.

The remaining trace sentiments are once again, disapproving of the president.

Some netizens had scathing remarks about President Marcos' solutions, or lack thereof, for the country's economic crises—making up 9% of the sentiment share.

Sarcastic comments warning Indonesia of the Marcos family, rigid comparisons between the Duterte and Marcos administrations, and critical comments about the Filipino community in Indonesia hold 8%, 5%, and 3% of the sentiment shares respectively.

“HISTORY IS LIKE CHISMIS”: ELLA CRUZ, INULAN NG MAKASAYSAYANG PAMBABATIKOS

Ella Cruz’s controversial take on history, likening it to gossip, amusingly became social media’s biggest ‘chismis' over the last few days.

Supposedly a provocative promotion for her upcoming film Maid in Malacanang, Cruz’s statement blew out of proportion–probably to her surprise too. History experts suddenly chimed in, a teacher’s partylist urgently filed a bill reforming the way history is taught in schools, and thousands of netizens both slammed and supported Cruz on her statement.

Clutch MediaTech’s proprietary sentiment scanning capability tore through the different heated viewpoints on the topic, from a total of 573,188 engagements, to get a good pulse of how this issue is going down in history.

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The sentiment scan showed that 39% of the overall conversation reflected negative criticisms towards Ella Cruz herself. This includes personal flaks from netizens condescendingly questioning her educational attainment, her intelligence, even her qualification to talk about history given that she’s only a B-list celebrity.

On the flip side, 32% of the overall sentiment share are of support and defense for Cruz. Most likely from staunch supporters of the Marcos administration, and the film. This sentiment share consists of comments fiercely justifying Cruz’s assertion that history is biased and opinionated, as well as comments slamming the historians who spoke against Ella Cruz’s quip.

Interestingly, neither taking Ella Cruz’s side nor denouncing her statement, Filipino netizens also expressed their general skepticism towards how history is written. For instance, many of them repeatedly referred to Winston Churchill’s quote: “history is written by victors” which implies that history is not always grounded in facts. This sentiment share consumes 16% of the overall conversation.

Lastly, at 9% and 4% respectively, trace sentiments on the issue speak of ill interpretations of the Marcoses in history books, and comments defending the discipline of history.
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If this is indeed a ‘promotion by provocation’ ploy for Darryl Yap’s film, then given the mad amount of engagements and sentiments it generated, it surely worked. Albeit, at the expense of Ella Cruz.

But looking at the overall shares of online sentiments around the topic, it looks like many are still siding with the thought that history is indeed biased, filtered, and opinionated–just like Ella Cruz asserts. Presenting a peril to the battles against revisionism and false information.