Comelec teams up with Twitter for #Eleksyon2016

The Commission on Elections is teaming up with Twitter for this May's national and local polls.

Comelec chair Andres Bautista announced the partnership on Monday, alongside Rishi Jaitly, Twitter vice president for media in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

According to Jaitly, this is their "first real partnership" that Twitter has announced in the Philippines.

He also said the Philippines is "one of [their] fastest-growing markets," with the site noticing the "enthusiasm" of Filipino users, notably to so-called AlDub phenomenon, or fans of Eat Bulaga's Alden Richards and Maine "Yaya Dub" Mendoza breaking several records at Twitter.

For the 2016 elections, the social networking site will provide "premium services" to help the poll body in addressing complaints and encouraging engagements during the scheduled debates.

He said this will include "access to a whole range" of said services, including software, technology, data, and analytics, to enable the poll body to better monitor engagement as needed.

"We'll be providing insight data and visualization that help represent the pulse of the country and the viewers with respect to what is top of mind during the debates," Jaitly said, adding that people will also be given a chance to interact then.

Earlier, the Comelec said it would also ask social media users to pitch questions for the debates using #PiliPinasDebates2016.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said they are going to use Twitter to make their information gathering "more efficient and systematic" by using its dashboard "to aggregate incident reports." 

According to Bautista, the Comelec sees social media as the "gamechanger" for the upcoming elections.

The poll body is also expected to forge a partnership with Facebook this week. — RSJ, GMA News