Twitter bares 10 biggest moments in Philippine

MANILA, Philippines – As a modern-day bookkeeper in the age of millennials, micro-blogging site Twitter fittingly capped the year by paying tribute to the biggest moments that sent shockwaves across Twitterverse.

Twitter Philippines ranked the most used hashtags, running into millions, that almost broke the internet:

1. Philippine elections?

The May elections topped Twitter Philippines’ biggest moment, which garnered a total of 35 million tweets with four million of them recorded on the day of the polls.

In a bid to promote the polls, the Commission on Elections launched #PiliPinas2016 in partnership with Twitter. The partnership enabled users to gain live access to information about politics and to freely express their sentiments about the ongoing elections.

During the election period, the hashtags #PiliPinas2016 and #PiliPinas were tapped by users to express their views regarding the election process. They also encouraged the people to use #PHVoteBinay, #PHVoteDuterte, #PHVotePoe, #PHVoteRoxas and #PHVoteSantiago when talking about the presidential elections.

Between Oct. 12 and May 9, then Davao City mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte was the most discussed presidential candidate with 40 percent – bigger than Binay’s (23.4 percent) and Roxas’ (18.9 percent) combined mentions.

Meanwhile, the #PilipinasDebates was among the most talked about topics during the election period, garnering five million tweets. On May 9, election-related tweets peaked at 5,600 per minute.

2. Kids’ Choice Awards

This year’s Nickelodeon’s Kids Choice Awards landed in second spot when teen heartthrobs Kathryn Bernardo, James Reid, Enrique Gil and Maine Mendoza were all nominated for the Favorite Pinoy Personality Award.

Mendoza, famously known as “Yaya Dub” or half of the phenomenal love team AlDub (with actor and television host Alden Richards), beat her local teen stars and was proclaimed as the Favorite Pinoy Personality.

It was a battle between two love teams – with solid AlDub fans amassing tweets for #VoteMaineFPP against Kathniels’ (Bernardo and actor-singer Daniel Padilla) #VoteKathrynFPP.

Green Archer cager Jeron Teng also took home the orange blimp for being the Favorite Asian Sports Star, edging out Kim Kurniawan of Indonesia, Pandelela of Malaysia and Irfan Fandi of Singapore.

AlDub fans gradually took to Twitter their admiration for the love team and since then accumulated a massive following that made the TV couple a global hit.

3. AlDub

Everyone loves their daily romance – that’s mainly the reason why the phenomenal love team AlDub has stolen millions of hearts and made everyone tune in on their daily misadventures on noontime TV show Eat Bulaga’s Kalyeserye.

The AlDub love team has been considered an accidental hit, when Mendoza and Richards exhibited an inexplicable chemistry that caught the attention of viewers.

AlDub fans gradually took to Twitter their admiration for the love team and since then, accumulated a massive following that made the TV couple a global hit.

Their fans generated a swarm of tweets that conquered every impossible milestone laid before them, with their unwavering support for the love team, the show’s daily hashtags interminably topping the daily charts.

The #AlDub1stAnniversary celebration was considered their first milestone, after their solid fans accumulated 6.6 million tweets followed by another 4.1 million tweets on their Valentine’s Day special #AldubIsLove.

It was already an unimaginable achievement for the love team, but their success did not stop there, when they released their first ever movie “Imagine You and Me,” which amassed 7.8 million tweets in its first week.

Last October, a total of eight million tweets were garnered by the phenomenal love team when they tied the knot, using the #AlDubWedding hashtag that trended worldwide at No. 2.

4. On The Wings Of Love

ABS-CBN’s primetime drama “On The Wings Of Love,” more popularly known as OTWOL, had made its viewers, regardless of their age, fall deeply in love – again. It had come as no surprise when their fans started to turn to Twitter and express their sentiments on the couple’s budding romance.

It was only a matter of time before the show started to trend on Twitter, garnering millions of tweets each episode.

Between Feb. 22 and 27, during OTWOL’s final week, the show accumulated a total of 8.2 million tweets.

The romantic comedy OTWOL revolved around Leah (Nadine Lustre) and Clark (James Reid)’s struggle as newlyweds, which seemed to have snatched millennials’ hearts.

The show’s final episode, under the #OTWOLTheLastFlight, also garnered thousands of tweets.

5. BTS K-pop group

With their massive following on Twitter, the Korean boyband BTS, collectively known as Bangtan Boys, claimed the fifth spot – following their performance in the country last July 30.

Their loyal fans took their support and admiration to Twitter when the group upon visiting the country for the second time to perform their #EpilogueinManila concert that took Twitterverse by storm.

With BTS’s 3.83 million followers, #EpilogueinManila became one of the most used hashtags in Twitterverse.

6. UAAP?

The University Athletic Association of the Philippines or UAAP snatched sixth spot, following the recently concluded men’s basketball competition won by the De La Salle Green Archers against their archrival, the Ateneo Blue Eagles.

The yearly intercollegiate competition also trended last month following the University of the Philippines Pep Squad’s absence.

The beloved group decided to skip this year’s Cheerdance Competition after questioning last year’s result, where the National University Pep Squad was proclaimed as the winner.

7. Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach

The controversial blunder of host Steve Harvey during coronation night aside, reigning Miss Universe Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach landed in seventh place for being the third Filipina to win the prestigious title.

The #HomecomingQueen, the day Wurtzbach flew back to the Philippines, garnered 430,000 tweets from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1.

Twitter Philippines also released an infographic showing the number of tweets during the Binibining Plipinas 2016 where Wurtzbach had the opportunity to take her final walk. Under the #BbPilipinas2016 hashtag, tweets swarmed for a total of 340,000 and peaked at 2,500 per minute.

8. Manny Pacquiao

Ranking eighth, boxing legend Manny Pacquiao became the first if not only professional boxer to get elected as senator. The Pambansang Kamao trended again online after coming out of his brief retirement, defeating Jessie Vargas via unanimous decision last November.

Meanwhile, during the course of the fight between Pacquio and Timothy Bradley III, the #PacBradley hashtag generated 380,000 tweets that peaked at 9,600 per minute on the day of the fight.

Pacquiao’s photo with his wife Jinkee, posted right after the fight, was also a Twitter hit.

9. Marcos burial

One of the most controversial issues that hounded the country – the surprise burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani – generated millions of tweets since the Supreme Court voted 9-5 in favor of the interment.

Thousands of people, mostly millennials, took to the streets in protest of the dictator’s surprise internment.

From Nov. 2 to Dec. 2, Marcos related tweets under the #MarcosBurial hashtag generated a total of 500,000 tweets and a high of 340 per minute.

The #MarcosBurial, #MarcosNotAHero, #NeverForget and #NeverAgain trended online as a form of protest coming from various segments of society.

Vice President Leni Robredo’s tweet regarding the dictator’s burial garnered thousands of retweets and likes.

10. Typhoon Lawin

One of the strongest typhoons that ever hit the country, Typhoon Lawin left 18 people dead and caused damage to agriculture amounting to P10.2 billion.

The typhoon also caused infrastructure damage amounting to P581.9 million. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported a total of 1,327 houses destroyed, with 28,710 families affected and 142,531 people left homeless.

According to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, Typhoon Lawin was nearly as powerful as Super Typhoon Yolanda that left 7,300 fatalities in the Visayas region in 2013.

Under #LawinPh, users generated 440,000 tweets from Oct. 18 to 21, peaking at 640 tweets per minute.