This study follows the recently held budget briefing for 2023. One of the main standpoints that evolved into controversy was the nature of the confidential budget that was allotted to the Department of Education (DepEd). Capstone-Intel Corporation has conducted an online social media sentiment scan of DepEd spanning the timeframe of July 1, 2023 to August 14, 2023, to determine the overall sentiment of the public that made the issue controversial in the first place. 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.   Background of the issue The DepEd has had its fair share of being placed under the microscope for its recent controversies. Based on the results, the top stories revolve around the K-10 curriculum change, how the department managed the return to face-to-face classes, and the “confidential” nature of the budget itself. In July, the education department completed the review of a K-10 curriculum and stated that it will be launching the new paradigm weeks after that initial announcement. This would then be gradually released and implemented over time and would be known as the “Matatag” curriculum. Another contention that placed DepEd in the spotlight would be their execution of the return to onsite classes that was stipulated in DepEd Order No. 034 dated July 11, 2022. Schools were required to comply and had until November of the previous year to fully adjust. This predated, however, the lifting of the public health emergency status by President Marcos on July 21, 2023. Knowing this, the initial announcement of DepEd at the time was met with friction and sparked a lot of public discussion. Finally, it was stated in the national budget for the fiscal year 2024 that there would be a proposed P150 million in confidential and intelligence funds allocated for the DepEd. However, what was notably present was the fact that there was an overall lack of a breakdown of these funds, stating that it was for the “interest of confidentiality.”   Methodology In order to thoroughly study this subject, Capstone-Intel committed to utilizing all publicly available data across all social media platforms from July 1, 2023, to August 14, 2023, using the agency’s advanced analytic tools. The data was gathered from online users who posted their sentiments online during the duration of the study. The insights garnered also originated from the inferences made after analyzing the patterns found within the data. Reaction analysis After studying the performance of the keywords “Education” and “DepEd” together on Facebook, it yielded a total of 753,191 reactions. 46.1 percent are Facebook Likes, 34.8 percent are Facebook Hearts/Loves, 34.8 percent are Facebook Love, 16 percent are Haha reactions, and the last 1.6 percent fall under Facebook Wow. This result emphasizes that the audience generally maintains a more neutral response to the issue at hand.   Sentiment Analysis In terms of the general sentiments on “DepEd” and “Education”, the split is much more obvious, with 52.2 percent of sentiments seeming to lean on the positive end of things, while the other 47.8 percent are more on the adverse side. This data comes from the various social media accounts that Capstone-Intel was able to scan and sift through. Among the positive authors, the most prominent sources of posts come from either Tiktok or Facebook, accounting for almost 70 percent of the positive mentions. Conversely, Facebook also serves as a source of negative sentiments against DepEd. X follows right after. Among the related topics that are connected to the aforementioned keywords, there is a general neutral perspective on each of these topics. However, it is important to note that “Teaching Growth” and “School Opening” are among the topics with the most positive sentiment. Keyword Insights Capstone-Intel also gathered data on DepEd’s search traffic to understand the insights of online visitors about the department. In terms of search intent, the variations to the phrase “Department of Education,” which include additional words like “logo,” “documents,” “Philippines,” and “learning management system,” all garner generally similar results. The data shows that the phrase on its own garnered around 41 percent of zero-click searches. This means that 41 percent of users mainly searched for this phrase in order to be redirected to the actual website itself. Half of the top keyword searches had a number of zero-click searches that indicated the potential intent of the user was to navigate the internet to reach the DepEd website. On the other hand, searches that included the word “logo”, were deemed to be more informational, which means users aimed to merely view the logo itself rather than navigate to the official website.   Confidential controversy Of the top sources for the mentions, four of the nine revolve around the confidentiality issue of the budget for the Department of Education. Vice President and current Secretary of Education Sara Duterte asserts that the budget remains confidential since it is “intertwined with national security.” This is also related to the story of the emphasis being placed on intel gathering for the majority of the proposed 2024 budget. However, it should be noted that in terms of specific topic interactions for this, the budget ranks only 12th out of the top 14 topics interacted with under the phrase “Education DepEd.” (Original post here)