Changing Topics for Changing Times: Thematic and Temporal-Based Analysis of the Philippine Senatorial and Midterm Elections

Elections in the Philippines are one of the most prominent events in the country. It is a time when people choose their leader through the democratic election process. During the electoral campaign, candidates try several strategies to win the election. However, victors emerge are those familiar and have mass-based support. In this paper, we have investigated the perception of netizens in the Philippines for the last two election seasons, 2019 and 2022, based on Twitter data. Thematic analyses were conducted to determine the themes related to winning candidates and create a link on how they may affect their election success. The study found that the top candidates (Cynthia Villar in 2019 and Robinhood Padilla in 2022) mainly received criticism and opposition towards their campaigns from the themes. Moreover, findings suggest that candidates with more negative or positive publicity emerge as winners. Long-time politicians and organized groups endorsed most winners during the 2019 and 2022 elections.