These are excerpts from the full Sipi 2024 data visualization project. To see all the data, visit the full Sipi 2024 site.
The 2024 College of Social Sciences & Philosophy Student Council elections concluded several months ago to a split council, with SALiGAN sa CSSP taking 8 seats and BUKLOD CSSP earning 7. Meanwhile, independent candidates took two seats while two more remain vacant.
In this year’s post-elections result analysis, we explore the departmental and level data to better understand how students in the College voted and what each party can expect, following the trends in the past several years.
Breaking SALiGAN sa CSSP’s hold over the standard bearer positions in the past several years, especially over the Chairship, BUKLOD CSSP gained the Chair and Vice Chair positions, with independent candidates only able to secure the CSSP Representative position and the PolSc department representative post. SALiGAN sa CSSP still tops the councilorships with 4 seats and maintains their now-slimmer majority through a number of department representative positions.
While the turnout rate continues to trend slightly downwards, the number of abstentions slowly continues to rise. For example, the Councilor spot in 2021 received only a hair over 100 abstentions, but now exceeds 200. A similar trend can be found across all standard-bearer positions as well.
The department voting data has yielded further interesting tensions and differences between the departments. Abstentions have started gaining significant ground, both in more apathetic (Kas) and more polarized departments (Psych, Geog, Socio). While the outlay definitely makes obvious the impact of Psych and PolSc on the results, the Councilor spots appear to be well-distributed throughout, with most Councilors of all kinds topping their own respective departments.
Anthro votes with SALiGAN sa CSSP across the board, with all four of their Councilors earning the top spots with over 57% of the vote and the chairship and vice chairship netting a 75% win.
Geog locks out BUKLOD CSSP entirely with a 20% abstention rate for the Councilorships, with only SALiGAN sa CSSP and Independent candidates getting positions.
Kas largely levees abstentions for its vote, with the chair, vice chair, and six of the seven Councilor posts remaining entirely vacant. Without these abstentions, BUK would have netted their vote, but it appears the department is left wanting.
The Lingg landscape seems strongly competitive. While SALiGAN managed to eke out many wins, the ties in the Councilorships, especially for the top spot may hint a break from the past several years.
Philo votes red with SAL’s candidates netting the top two posts, though, unlike Geog, grants BUK’s councilor-candidates the rest of the seats. With no running candidate for the department representative post, it stands vacant.
Ever the mixed bag, PolSc leads with BUK for its chair and vice chair but carries upwards many SAL councilor candidates, with the BUK councilor candidates left a little behind, save for BUK’s Pascua.
Psych retains its status as BUK’s stronghold, with SAL entirely unable to net a single post under the department’s votes. With the magnitude of the department’s size, along with PolSc, it has shown that it, even largely on its own, can influence top positions.
Socio mirrors much of Geog, with BUK also unable to net a seat. SAL’s Patawaran nets an extreme 80% win in her home department, while BUK’s best-performing Matandac can barely even reach half of the 20% abstains in the department.
Overall, the composition of the new College of Social Sciences & Philosophy Student Council is definitely a more mixed bag than perhaps either party would like. Psychology continues to exercise a tremendous kind of gravity on election results, while both polarization and apathy are hinted by several departments locking out entire parties from the Council under their votes.
Perhaps mirroring votes in the unitwide USC elections, where the entirety of the UPD USC remains vacant, save for local college representatives, abstentions continue to trend upwards, claiming only 10% of votes in 2022 and now well past 20%. Political participation remains steep in the College, unlike much of Diliman. However, it is unclear if students are satisfied with the candidates they are receiving.
What it is clear is that, while SALiGAN sa CSSP holds what is a majority in the Council, with BUKLOD CSSP’s standard bearers at the helm, there is a strong need for consensus to get things done. Whether or not such a consensus will be met is a matter of both history and cooperation, with now several years of heavily-mixed Councils showing some level of cooperation, but with varying responses from the student body.
But will the new Council follow suit following SALiGAN sa CSSP’s break in headship? All eyes on the Council as a new school year opens and CSSP FST Month, the Council’s first flagship project of recent academic years, draws close.
These are excerpts from the full Sipi 2024 data visualization project. To see all the data, visit the full Sipi 2024 site.
