ADMINISTRATION lawmakers yesterday denounced the proliferation of fake social media accounts defending former president Rodrigo Duterte, saying these are meant to manipulate online discussions ahead of the 2025 midterm elections.
Deputy Speaker David Suarez of Quezon said disinformation is being weaponized through coordinated online campaigns that aim to “undermine” democracy in favor of the Dutertes and their allies.
“This is digital warfare, plain and simple. And the battlefield is not just the internet — it’s the hearts and minds of millions of Filipinos,” he said.
“This is a wake-up call. The weaponization of disinformation to mislead, misinform and manipulate voters is one of the gravest threats to our democracy today,” he added.
The lawmaker was reacting to a Reuters report that fake social media accounts praising the former president, who is detained and facing trial in The Hague for murder as a crime against humanity, are shaping online discussions about the midterm elections.
The news report, citing research by Israeli tech firm Cyabra, said about a third of the accounts protesting Duterte’s arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC) were fake.
The same report also said 45 percent of the discussions about the midterm polls are being driven by inauthentic actors such as avatars, bots, sock puppets and paid influencers.
“Fake praise, fake news, fake accounts — this is how digital warfare is being waged today. And the most dangerous part is, ordinary people might not even know they’re being influenced,” Suarez said.
Suarez urged social media platforms like Meta, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube to adopt stronger measures to combat and remove fake contents, saying that “they can’t just turn a blind eye while democracy is under attack.”
The House tri committee, which is composed of the Committees on Public Order and Safety, Information and Communications Technology and Public Information, has been looking into the proliferation of fake news to review the effectiveness of online platforms in curbing disinformation.
Last April 8, the joint panel ordered the arrest and detention of social media personalities Lorraine Marie Badoy-Partosa, Jeffrey Celiz, Allan Troy “Sass” Sasot and Mark Lopez after they were cited in contempt for snubbing the joint panel’s hearing on fake news and disinformation, which lawmakers said tend to benefit the Duterte camp.
In that hearing, Meta, the company that runs the social media app Facebook, refused to accept liabilities for the spread of fake news and disinformation online, saying individual users are responsible for what they post on the platform.
Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales Jr., for his part, said: “We must defend the Filipino people not just from guns and goons, but from ghost accounts flooding their social media feeds with propaganda and deception.”
“When bots, trolls, and fake profiles can reach millions of Filipinos and alter the truth with just a few clicks, democracy itself is under attack,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales stressed the need for the Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education and the Department of Information and Communications Technology to launch a joint national digital literacy program “to help students and the public identify and resist coordinated disinformation campaigns.”
“It’s not enough to fact-check after the damage is done. We need to inoculate our people against lies and fake news — especially the youth who are most active online and most vulnerable to digital manipulation,” Gonzales said.
INCLUDE VLOGGERS’ CLIENTS
Senatorial candidate and labor lawyer Luke Espiritu yesterday called on Congress to train its guns not just on vloggers and social media influencers suspected of spreading fake news but also on big public relations firms and their politician-clients who benefit from their activities.
Espiritu identified the Duterte and Marcos families as some of the biggest beneficiaries of the shady cyberspace operations that drive public opinion during campaigns.
“Our country has emerged as the number one spot for lies and misinformation during elections. We earned the top spot for fake news and having the most number of fake accounts,” he said on a post on his official Facebook page.
“We are now an international laughingstock for electing two presidents whose campaigns were fueled by fake news and lies,” he also said.
Espiritu said that regardless of official government data that Duterte’s war on illegal drugs failed, influencers have swayed public opinion that the brutal campaign of the former president was effective.
“The truth is that political dynasties are the protectors of illegal activities including drug trafficking. We will see in the trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) how prosecutors will try to expose the Duterte family’s links to drug syndicates,” he said.
He likewise hit the window-dressing of the Marcos dictatorship as the supposed “golden age” of the Philippines in the 70s when history documented thousands of killings, illegal arrests and detentions, and cases of torture.
He cited court records which he said bear out that billions were plundered from the national coffers even as the economy was saddled by more billions in loans from various creditors.
“The House TriComm should not just focus on fake news vloggers at influencers. Studies conducted by international cyber-security firms like (Israel-based) Cyabra clearly point to a systematic and well-funded fake news infrastructures for Duterte and Marcos,” Espiritu said.
Rather than training its guns on small fry vloggers, Espiritu called on Congress to expose the public relations firms who are pulling all the strings on such a cyberspace operation.
“Voters’ education would always fall short is we simply try to fight fake news on the frontlines of social media. Authorities should go after the bosses of fake news peddlers and their political clients who reap the benefit because they are wrecking our democratic processes,” he added. – With Peter Tabingo
