Leni is leading content driver, but Isko gets best sentiments

Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso (left) and Vice President Leni Robredo. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS)

MANILA, Philippines — In the first 30 days of the election campaign, Vice President Leni Robredo was the leading content driver of legitimate news sites and social media outlets among the top five presidential bets. But Manila Mayor Isko Moreno generated the most favorable content.

Isentia Philippines, a media monitoring and analytics firm, made the observations in a study, the results of which are contained  in a report called “The First 30 Days.”

Isentia shared the report with INQUIRER.net on Tuesday.

Robredo generated the most volume of content or mentions during the first 30 days of the campaign, accounting for 58% of materials on social media and mainstream media.

She is well ahead of other presidential bets. Former Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had  32%, Moreno 5%, Sen. Panfilo Lacson 3%, and Sen. Manny Pacquiao 2%.

As to how positive or negative the content was, Moreno got the highest net score of +1.63 out of a possible +5. This reflects a positive perception of the content.

Lacson got a score of +1.55), Robredo +1.49, Pacquiao +1.35, and Marcos +1.14 score.

According to Isentia, Marcos’s score is near the border of a “slightly positive, slightly negative” result.

“The presidential candidates generated quite a stir during the first 30 days of the campaign. Among the pack, Robredo emerged as the volume driver, dominating the mentions across mainstream and social space,” Isentia said in its report.

“In terms of favorability, however, Moreno took the lead with a slightly positive score of +1.63. Accomplishments were a potent talking point in this period, alongside discussions on the presidentiables’ respective campaigns and slogans,” the report added.

Measured by how much content was published per topic, Robredo led in several categories:

• presenting accomplishments – 52%  to Moreno’s 20%
• campaign slogan – 50% to Marcos’s 22%
• general mentions – 41% to Marcos’s 30$%
• support and vote pledges – 52%

Marcos led in the following topics:

• candidacy status – 59% to Robredo’s 16%
• candidate issues – 52% to Robredo’s 27%

The two frontrunners were nearly tied regarding content share for the following topics:

• mock votes — Robredo with 27% and Marcos with 26%
• stance on issues – Robredo with 41% and Marcos with 40%

Moreno and Lacson were tied in the topic of highest content share about their own platforms — at 24%.

Pacquiao was last in the categories of published materials about his accomplishments, campaign and slogan, candidacy status, candidate issues, and support and vote pledges.

Methodology

According to Isentia, it got its data by analyzing 16,712 news materials and over 2.549 million posts and comments on social media sites.

Most of the discussions happened on online news websites, which accounted for 41% of the interactions. The other discussions were on Facebook (27%), Twitter (13%), broadcast and print (9% each), and YouTube (1%).

Most of the content in the first 30 days — from Feb. 8 to March 9 — came in the following forms

• general mentions — 25%
• support pledges – 22%
• ratings and mock votes – 19%
• candidate issues – 10%
• platforms – 8%
• accomplishments – 7%
• candidacy status – 6%

Isentia said it published the report to show the themes and sentiment of media and public discussions about the candidates for the first month of the campaign season.

“This report […] monitored media activity and sentiment during the candidates from 8 February 2022 to 9 March 2022. The report also includes several conversations and trends which occurred in both mainstream and social media,” the company said.

“The whitepaper also seeks to comprehend the themes and sentiment of the media and digital public discussions on the identified candidates since the official campaign period from 8 February 2022 to 9 March 2022,” it added.

Moreno and Robredo are parts of what is perceived to be a three-way battle for the presidency against survey frontrunner Marcos.

Recent surveys indicate that Robredo is still trailing Marcos. But Pulse Asia’s poll, which was conducted from March 17 to 21, showed the vice president gaining nine percentage points, increasing from a 15 percent to 24 percent voter preference.

Marcos’s lead is still big despite dropping four percentage points — to 56 percent. But Robredo’s camp believes the surveys have started to show the groundswell for her, and that the momentum is on her side now.

Moreno remained in third place, grabbing only eight of the respondents’ votes. But his camp believes that he remains a strong bet given that he is the second choice of several Robredo and Marcos supporters.

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