“Fake news ‘yan’”: Disinformation and The Philippines Presidential Elections

“Fake news ‘yan.” That’s fake news 

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard the phrase while I was in the Philippines. I even said it myself whenever my mother found herself drawn to a Facebook video that was suspiciously too good to be true.  

This hasn’t always been the case, though. Before the 2016 Philippine Presidential Elections, disinformation was often restricted to celebrity scandals and business scams. At the time, most of us didn’t know that “fake news” could — and would — change the political landscape for the worse. 

Enter President Rodrigo Duterte.  

A mayor of Davao City for over 20 years, Rodrigo Duterte’s rise to political power is largely influenced by disinformation circulated by fake news outlets and troll farms (a group of people who do not really exist, set up to publish messages or posts on the internet to cause trouble, including influencing political views). Miguel Syjuco, a New York Times contributor, listed fake endorsements for President Duterte which included influential people such as Pope Francis, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Nikki Haley, Angelina Jolie, Dwayne Johnson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  

With so much disinformation at play, it isn’t a surprise that Duterte won the elections. It could have stopped there — should have stopped there. But things got worse and we cannot talk about Duterte without talking about his political ally and the current President of the Philippines --  

Infamous President Bongbong Marcos, Jr.  

Bongbong Marcos, Jr. (nicknamed BBM) is the son of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. who is notorious for silencing anyone who dares oppose him (the most famous being Senator Benigno Aquino, Sr. who was assassinated in 1983 for openly criticizing Marcos and aspiring to run as president after Marcos’ term) and for declaring Martial Law in 1972. According to the Martial Law Museum, over 100,000 people were victims of human rights violations, 70,000 were arrested (often without a warrant), 34,000 were tortured and 3,240 were killed by the military and police.  

Not only are the Marcoses known for their cruelty, but their greed, too. To start, the former First Lady Imelda Marcos was reported to have around 3,000 pairs of shoes. The Martial Law Museum reported that the Marcoses hoarded $683 million in Swiss banks, and their ill-gotten wealth amounted to $5 billion.  

With all this corruption and violence, you may wonder how their son, BBM, became the president back in the 2022 Philippine Presidential Elections.  

The answer? Historical distortion.  

A good example of historical distortion is #IlibingNa (roughly translates to “Allow the Burial”), an online campaign for Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. to be buried in the Heroes’ Cemetery. It’s an honor he doesn’t deserve given what he did during his presidency and subsequent dictatorship.  

According to Architects of Network Disinformation, a report of fake news production in the Philippines, the campaign involves online petitions, memes, videos, and articles that call for forgiveness and “national healing,” which minimizes the crimes the Marcoses had done during their reign.  

Despite the protests, Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. was buried in the Heroes’ Cemetery in 2016. Little did we know that this was just the start of the Marcoses’ plot to return to power.  

Historical distortion and disinformation became much worse in the months leading up to the elections, and the studies around it aren’t promising to say the least. A 2021 survey by Ateneo School of Government revealed that the supporters of Duterte have a “lower capacity” to distinguish fact from disinformation. A 2022 study by the Far Eastern University Public Policy Center discovered that the Philippine history school curriculum “had commentaries [about the Martial Law era] that were incomplete or false due to the absence of supporting economic data”.  

Meanwhile, trolls abound on social media, sharing pictures of infrastructures built during the so-called glory days of the Philippines during the Marcos regime. These “achievements” are often posted alongside BBM quotes: “If my father was allowed to pursue his plans, I believe that we would be like Singapore now.” 

The chaos didn’t stay online, however.  

On election day, there were 105,000 ballots deemed defective. There were delayed voting posts and irregularities in various cities abroad, including here in Wellington. There were cases of vote-buying such as Socorro Bayanihan Services Incorporated, a cult that forced its members to vote for BBM and his running mate, Sara Duterte, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte. And this was just a few of what was discovered by Rappler, the news outlet founded by 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa.  

Then, it was all over. BBM won. One of the most frustrating and heart-breaking moments I remember is when a troll confessed during the radio show “Good Times,” claiming that he voted for the opposition but participated in the disinformation campaign that led to BBM’s election. “It’s a contract wherein I’ll be getting ₱2.5 million,” the troll claimed, to which one of the hosts later replied, “You sold us out for ₱2.5 million. Voting for [the opposition] and you calling us and telling us you feel bad does not make up for it. It does not.” 

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“Fake news” isn’t just a catchphrase or an online phenomenon. Fake news erases our history, minimizes the sufferings of those who came before us, and even kills people.  

Despite it all, it’s important to stand firm — tumindig. As my mother always says, “Truth prevails.” They can write thousands and thousands of lies but the truth will come out eventually. But we shouldn’t wait idly. Let us remember and preserve our history. Let us seek the truth together.