The issue of public transport and overall price hikes has always been a contentious issue in the country, as various factors continue to affect prices. Until October 3, 2023, a decision was being made regarding the price increase of the provisional fare for different transports across the Philippines. In the afternoon of the same day, the LTFRB (Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board) came to accept the initial petition of a one-peso fare increase across both traditional and modern public utility jeepneys. Capstone-Intel looks into the sentiment of the public regarding this issue.
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Methodology
The scan was conducted from July 2023 to October 2023. It utilized Capstone-Intel’s social listening tools in order to scan and analyze publicly available Facebook pages for their posts that mention the issue at hand. It is imperative to emphasize that there were no specific demographics or unique personal data sheets that were scanned, tracked, and analyzed. All results come from publicly available posts.
The social media scanner was able to scan and gather a total of 3,881 posts with an engagement score of 226,029.5 for the keyword “jeepney.” Additionally, the keyphrases “LTFRB” and “pamasahe” were scanned as well, giving a post count of 1,998 and an engagement score of 47,523.2 for the former and a 914 post count with a 40,795 for the latter.
These three key phrases are the ones with the highest reaction count and overall engagement scores among the keywords that were selected for this specific scanning.
Reaction breakdown
It is indicated in the data that there was a search spike for this particular topic on October 3, 2023, which is when the LTFRB would then make their final decision regarding the petitions.
For the keyword “pamasahe,” there have been a total of 280,976 reactions for all the posts that mention it. In specifics, there have been 97,022 Like reactions (34.5 percent), 52,160 Love reactions (18.6 percent), 108.043 Haha reactions (38.5 percent), 3,066 Wow reactions (1.1 percent), 18,792 Sad reactions (6.7 percent), and 1,896 Angry reactions (0.7 percent).
On Facebook, the keyword “ltfrb” and the posts with this mention were able to gather a total of 139,991 total reactions. Broken down, there are 71,251 Like reactions (42.9 percent), 41,367 Love reactions (24.9 percent), 8,969 Haha reactions (5.4 percent), 9,574 Wow reactions (5.8 percent), 6,645 Sad reactions (19 percent), and 2,185 Angry reactions (2 percent).
Finally, “jeepney” has gathered a total of 1,470,704 reactions. It was able to garner 845,437 Like reactions (57.5 percent), 542,657 Love reactions (36.9 percent), 32,429 Haha reactions (2.2 percent), 15,391 Wow reactions (1 percent), 31,505 Sad reactions (2.1 percent), and 3,284 Angry reactions (0.2 percent). It should be important to note, however, that these reactions mainly come from the stories or teleserye promotional material that involve jeepneys rather than the issue of the fare hike.
Online presence
When it comes to the issue itself, the most engaged story on Facebook belongs to Rappler, wherein their story reports about the one-peso fare increase petition approval from the LTFRB. It has 300 likes and 98 angry reactions, garnering an engagement score of 2,967.
This is then followed by ABS-CBN posting a similar story on fare increases. However, this one was about the rise in fares for the Light Rail Transit, or LRT, systems around the city. This post has 356 like reactions and 52 angry reactions, bringing the engagement score to 640.8.
The other keyphrase that yielded stories that directly relate to, or are about, the fare hike issue was a report from TV Patrol regarding the increase in gasoline, which was the driving point in which numerous transport groups were led to write a petition for the increase in fares to account for the gas prices. This particular story has 563 Like reactions and 33 Angry reactions, garnering an engagement score of 221.7. The issue of oil increases is generally seen as a negatively received topic, hence the angry reactions.
The jeepney fare increase story, the oil price hike story, and the LRT fare increase story all gained traction throughout the same general period, emphasizing the integratedness of different aspects of society.
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