SIBYA 10: On Disinformation and Democracy

By Nia Enrille R. Rabanes

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t’s about time we call it for what it is: manipulation. The longer people dismiss and deny the malicious intent that founded the campaign of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the harder it is for such tactics to be eliminated. At this point, accountability is not only expected from those who have strategically generated content with fake information, not just from thousands of paid trolls, nor from the authorities that fund these operations—but to each and every Filipino who surrendered their ability to think critically and succumbed to the fabricated world that was fed to them.

Facebook as the garden bed for seeds of propaganda

A few years after Facebook gave Filipino users access to the Free Basics App in 2015, the number of Filipinos logged in on the platform reached up to 97 percent of the country’s total internet users, which meant that so many users had Facebook as their source of news; a phenomenon maximized by Marcos’ troops to achieve their plan of changing their family’s history in motion.

One early account of activity that operated to feed the audience with incorrect information was Pinoy Rap Radio’s post in May 2014. The post presented the idea that Ferdinand Marcos Sr. didn’t steal billions from Filipinos, and that every corruption case against Imelda Marcos had been cleared. Both of these claims are proven incorrect as the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) to this day, continues to retrieve the money the Marcoses have stolen. And among numerous cases against Imelda Marcos, several of them have concluded with her being guilty.

According to Rappler writer Gemma Mendoza, this post acquired more than 331,000 shares, 38,000 comments, and 369,000 reactions before Rappler corrected its claims in its Fact Check segment in November 2018.

And from then on began the surge of multiple dubious pages actively spreading disinformation. Trolls as pioneers

When then-Davao mayor Rodrigo Duterte first announced his candidacy for the presidential position, he didn’t stand much of a chance against established politicians Grace Poe and Mar Roxas. This changed when the troll farms set up by Duterte’s social media director, Nic Gabunda, started to show results. After a series of flooding the platform with fake news and pro-Duterte sentiments, as well as spam liking and sharing, by April of 2016, Duterte had dominated the political conversations on social media. One reason why this strategy has garnered enough attention from unsuspecting citizens is the overwhelming number of engagements in said posts creating “an artificial sense of popularity, momentum or relevance,” as described by the University of Oxford researchers Samantha Bradshaw and Philip Howard.

This tactic had not faltered even during Duterte’s term as president. A study by University of the Philippines (UP) Assistant Professor Karl Hapal noted how social media has “become a trollinfested cesspool where users threaten or endanger others with dissenting opinions [...] Moreover, it has served to justify the bloody war on drugs.” In 2020, during multiple spikes in the number of positive cases, a wave of Twitter users expressing support for Duterte’s COVID-19 response were suspended after they were observed to have violated manipulation and spam policies. Posting “duplicate” content across multiple accounts, creating multiple accounts, and sending large numbers of unsolicited replies or mentions were the bases for their suspension

Lawfare authors Mihm, Oulamine, and Singer state, “As it currently stands, the lines among paid trolling, unpaid trolling, and grassroots support are unclear.”

Disinformation scheme, tried and true

Many studies point out how, like Dutere, Marcos Jr.’s gain of favor among Filipinos is a result of networked propaganda. For the 2022 elections in particular, The Digital Public Pulse (DPP) finds that this time around, “there are many obscure, suspended, or removed accounts on social media that have largely contributed to partisan election discourse.”

UP Communication Research Assistant Professor Fatima Gaw says that disinformation “is really priming the audience to rationalize [the Marcos] lies and distortions.”

Imelda Marcos first hinted at wanting to return to Malacañang on her birthday in 2014, and after a few years, her desire took form in Marcos Jr.’s win in the 2022 presidential elections.

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The plot for the Marcoses’ return to power has been in the works way before Marcos Jr. expressed interest in the position, and with the machinery that’s already instilled in Facebook and other social media platforms—the people have already been conditioned to turn a blind eye to the devastation the Marcos clan has placed upon the country; the billions of money they have stolen from public funds, the working Filipino people and their families whose living conditions have utterly worsened, and the countless lives they’ve taken in the name of grandeur or of merely wielding power.

With all that said, what does it say about us if we go on continuing to believe that Marcos Jr.’s win was free of any pretense? C

Sources:

rappler.com/newsbreak/investigative/245402 cnnphilippines.com/news/2022/3/24 bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/ demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/ rappler.com/technology/features/philippine-troll-armiescoda-story/ technology.inquirer.net/98139 www.rappler.com/nation/62215

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resident Rodrigo Roa Duterte is the 16th incumbent president of the Philippines. He has built a reputation for himself by making big promises and proclaiming his outright hatred for criminality in general. With over a month after his term, let us take a look at what his administration has accomplished, and the promises that he swore he would realize when elected as president versus what he actually did.

Expectation: A country changed

To the Filipinos, Duterte’s win in 2016 was the change they had been waiting for. A relatively unknown Mindanaon mayor from Davao City running for the highest position in the country gave people hope—hope for a leader that understands the plight of the masses, who then will be able to raise them up from poverty.

Duterte, being the only president to hail from Mindanao, sparked intrigue from all across the Philippines. People were awed by the declarations he made during his campaign. From riding a boat holding the Philippine flag and planting it on the West Philippine Sea to signify that it is the country’s territory, to eradicating drugs in under six months after being elected, and moreover, swearing to step down if he fails to deliver so. This also includes his bold promises on ending Labor Contractualization or also known as “Endo,” and ending corruption and insurgency in the country.

Reality: Violent and stagnant

Walking the talk is a different matter altogether. His once colorful promises blended into a violent shade of red, marking the heavy consequences that his proclamations entailed.

Duterte’s fearless promise of eradicating drugs in under six months upon his inauguration was highly anticipated. However, his loathe for drugs translated into a bloody drug war, to the chagrin of various human rights groups. A total of 311,686 people were arrested and 6,201 people lost their lives to his crusade—a crusade that was not even successful. His promise to eradicate drugs under the expected time extended to another six months, and even until the last few months of his term, the issue still ran rampant, and the injustices behind his campaign against it were just swept under the rug.

On the subject of Labor contractualization, Endo denies workers a pathway to permanent employment via five-month contracts. Despite claiming that this problem will be one that he will prioritize, Duterte has gone back on his word when he vetoed the security of tenure bill, saying it destroys the “healthy balance” between the conflicting interests of laborers and employers. This, in turn, has made workers feel as if they were betrayed after the extravagant vow.

Meanwhile, on the subject of territory, built on his bold answers in debates, Duterte’s stance on the West Philippine Sea was clear: it is ours to claim. But it seems the tide has shifted after five years into his term. Proof of contradictions in his own statements and actions show that he is more concerned with warming up and keeping good ties with China than advancing the Filipino people’s rights in their own waters.

While in more recent matters, the pandemic was an unprecedented event that took the Duterte administration by surprise. Instead of addressing the problem quickly, Duterte’s pandemic response was deemed one of the worst when ranked as 52nd in Bloomberg’s study that measured the resilience and response of economies to the pandemic. The administration was fumbling from one bad decision to another. From declaring the travel ban late, to prioritizing the rehabilitation of the Manila Bay, to the anomalies in the pandemic budget, threatening his own citizens with his “shoot them dead” statement if people were to violate health protocols, and to the increasing debt of the country, it was a tumultuous time faced by the masses.

Legacy: The good in the past six years

Though there were controversies along the way, Duterte was still able to contribute good things and serve his country in the best way he thought was possible. To highlight, he provided quality education, numerous infrastructures and most of all, peace.

During his administration, over 1.6 Million students were aided with free education, after he signed Republic Act 10931, which was filed by Senator Ralph Recto and principally sponsored by Senator Bam Aquino, into law in 2017. This establishes student loan programs and tertiary education subsidies to promote quality education by ensuring free tuition in state universities and colleges, local universities and colleges, and staterun technical-vocational institutions.

Taking off from the Aquino administration, infrastructure spending was at an all-time high with 1.12 Trillion pesos and materialized through roads, airports, and railway projects all over the country. Out of the 119 targeted projects, nine bigticketed projects were completed.

It is also in Duterte’s administration that the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) was signed. BOL was the law that culminated in the peace deal signed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the past administrations. This law replaces the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), which allows the more fiscal autonomy, regional government, parliament, and justice system.

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The Filipino people continue to swoon over strongly suggestive words and promises. Oftentimes, they are blind-sided by the easy way out, even clinging to empty oaths and impossible vows. After six long years, Duterte’s administration is a prime example of how people should not fall for empty words and instead, demand for action and accountability. C

NATIONAL

By Regina Noelle C. Arquiza and Rustom Louiegie P. Duran Jr.