Authors - Hussein P. El Sayed Ahmed, Ardee Joy T. Ocampo Abstract - Youth participation in local governance remains a persistent challenge despite institutional mechanisms designed to promote engagement. In the Philippines, the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) serves as a formal platform for youth involvement in local decisionmaking; however, many SK programs continue to experience low participation, limited feedback integration, and repetitive activity design. This study presents EmpowerSK, a data-driven framework that leverages data mining techniques to enhance youth engagement in SK programs. Using structured survey data from 1,055 youth respondents aged 18–25 across the nine barangays of Alilem, Ilocos Sur, the study applies the Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) framework, K-Means clustering, and sentiment analysis to transform raw feedback into governance intelligence. K-Means clustering (k=3) identified three statistically validated engagement profiles: Highly Active (61.6%), Moderately Involved (17.0%), and Disengaged (21.3%). Sentiment analysis of open-ended responses revealed appreciation (77.8% positive), diagnosis (73.2% negative), and aspiration (85.5% neutral-aspirational) as a coherent three-phase youth governance narrative. An overall weighted mean of 3.75 ("Very Good") across eleven Likert-scale items confirmed a critical institutional gap: Digital Engagement (4.14) significantly outpaced SK Support Initiatives (3.52), with SK Training recording the lowest item score (3.44). A five-pillar data-driven action plan—Awareness and Inclusion, Program Diversification, Digital Transformation, Capacity Building, and Monitoring and Evaluation—was developed, validated by SK officials, and aligned with SDG 4, 11, and 16. The findings demonstrate that freely available data mining tools can transform rural youth governance into an annually replicable, evidence-based participatory system.
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