Suicide in the Philippines: A Social Representations Analysis of Facebook Discourse

Suicide in the Philippines: A Social Representations Analysis of Facebook Discourse

by Gutsdozer E Tancio, PhD in Clinical Psychology Candidate

ABSTRACT:

Suicide is a serious public health concern that continues to affect individuals, families, and communities in the Philippines. Although suicide has been widely examined through medical, psychological, and moral frameworks, there remains a critical lack of empirical understanding of how Filipinos collectively make sense of suicide in everyday public discourse, particularly in digital spaces such as Facebook. Given the increasing role of social media in shaping public opinion, stigma, and help-seeking behaviors, examining these collective meaning-making processes is essential for the development of culturally responsive suicide prevention efforts. Grounded in Social Representations Theory, this study investigates how suicide is collectively interpreted through Filipino Facebook discourse.

A sequential mixed-methods design was employed. Public comments (N = 5,682) from 46 suicide-related news posts published between 2023 and 2024 by 15 verified Philippine-based Facebook news pages were analyzed. Quantitative topic modeling was first conducted to identify dominant lexical clusters, followed by qualitative interpretive analysis to derive overarching social representations.         

Findings revealed four coexisting social representations of suicide: faith-moralized, socio-affective, systemic–structural, and psychological–Individualistic. Faith-Moralized representations were hegemonic, framing suicide as a sin, a consequence of spiritual deficiency, that can be coped with faith, and forgivable if medicalized. Socio-affective representations emphasized collective grief, empathy, and cultural practices of “Pakikiramay”, which works as an emancipated representation. Systemic-structural representations located responsibility in authority figures and institutional failures, while psychological-individualistic representations framed suicide as a response to overwhelming personal suffering; notably, both function as polemic representations.             

The study concludes that suicide in Filipino Facebook discourse functions as a socially constructed object whose meaning is collectively negotiated through dialogical and competing representations. These representations shape social responses to suicide by regulating judgment, empathy, blame, and calls for intervention, underscoring the importance of integrating culturally grounded social representations into suicide prevention and mental health policy in the Philippine context.

2:00-4:00 pm, Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Adviser: 

Arsenio S Alianan, Jr, PhD

Panelists:

Mira Alexis P Ofreneo, PhD

Erwine S Dela Paz, PhD

Lota A Teh, PhD

Marc Eric Reyes, PhD

Keywords: Social Representations Theory, Suicide Discourse, Philippines, Facebook Discourse, Topic Modelling