There are about 68 million users of Facebook in the Philippines (according to Statista), which earns the country sixth place in world ranking. With this penetration, our government agencies cannot continue to ignore this social channel to communicate with the public.

Out of curiosity, I checked the Facebook pages of top government departments. Below I share more details about each page.

1. PAG-ASA – 3,664,279 followers

Date Created: December 2, 2012

2. Department of Education –
3,271,395 followers

Date Created: May 15, 2012

3. SSS Philippines – 2,265,519 followers

Date Created: June 1, 2009 

4. Pag-IBIG (HDMF) – 1,340,142 followers

Date Created: July 8, 2010

5. Philhealth – 1,298,201 followers

Date Created: September 16, 2011

6. Department of Tourism – 1,210,208 followers

Date Created: December 20, 2011

7. Department of Health – 1,055,202 followers

Date Created: September 3, 2010

8. National Wages and Productivity Commission – 983,223 followers

Date Created June 11, 2014

9. Department of Foreign Affairs – 854,718 followers

Date Created: December 27, 2012

10. Department of Social Welfare & Development – 322,309 followers

Date Created: September 7, 2010

DENR didn’t make the cut, with 141,411 followers, though its page was created in August 2012.

Let’s dig deeper. You will notice that SSS is the earliest adopter of Facebook as a communication channel among all government agencies. The page was created in June of 2009. SSS has to deal with a lot of inquiries on a daily basis so using a social networking site that many Filipinos use could help them save cost and make public communication easier.

The downside is that everyone can comment or send your page a message, allowing any citizen to air their complaints publicly. Mishandling these can be bad for the government agency’s image.

Which government FB page has the most beautiful photos and videos? That goes to the Department of Tourism.

As for the most engaging = funny/witty page, the supposedly boring National Wages and Productivity Commission wins. Don’t agree with me? Go ahead and check their page. Or, just take a look at below screenshot:

Did I miss an official Facebook page of a government agency? Let me know in the comments.