Socio-political deterioration: Marcos win fueled by disinformation

Written by Maria Erika Coleen Nidea

Published May 23, 2022

The 2022 national elections served as a clincher in the rivalry between Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Vice President Leni Robredo, which started in the vice presidential race in 2016. However, the elections revealed a frightening problem in the Philippines as millions of Filipinos chose to deny facts and history after being deceived through social media abuse and distortion.

While it seems Bongbong Marcos – son of former president and dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. – won by a landslide against Robredo and his other opponents, it was social media that enabled the dictator’s son to rise and win the presidency. On social media, many Filipinos have proven to be easily misled by disinformation.

Based on reports from Rappler, Marcos’ camp used social media tactics to propagate fake propaganda and to historically revise their family’s image. Cambridge Analytica was asked to rebrand their family image, using YouTube to influence election discourse and create a Marcos-linked fake account network to take over Twitter and Facebook.

Thousands of Facebook pages and Youtube channels glorifying the Marcos family and the ‘Golden Era’ of Philippine history have also undoubtedly created a polished image for the Marcoses, ultimately helping them pave their way in going back to the Malacañang palace.

Even Benjamin Abalos Jr., Marcos’ campaign manager, said in an interview with The New York Times, “All candidates, all political parties engage in disinformation.”

Moreover, according to the December 2021 Social Weather Station survey, 51% of Filipinos have low comprehension in determining whether an article or any other published writing provides accurate or inaccurate information. Also, Data Reportal’s statistics state that there are at least 92 million active social media users in the country, which makes a majority of Filipinos highly susceptible to misinformation and disinformation.

With the rapid proliferation of fake news and disinformation, the Filipinos’ lack of ability to distinguish facts from disinformation led to developing historical distortion. This poses a great threat not only to our political landscape but also to our democracy because it may damage our already scarred society.

According to historian Alfred McCoy, an estimated 3,257 people were killed, about 35,000 people were tortured, and roughly 70,000 people were arrested during Martial Law. However, it seems that Martial Law’s brutal history is slowly being erased. Historical distortion can make it seem like the Marcoses' rule were the glory days when the country was peaceful and prosperous. However, this is false based on historical evidence and records.

Bearing these in mind, it is as if the people who suffered from the atrocities of Martial Law were forgotten. Fanatics may even view them as mere tools used by the opposition to damage the name of the Marcoses. Whereas back then, writing pieces like this opinion article was already life-threatening.

To combat the peddling of disinformation and fake news, the Filipino-American group US Filipinos for Good Governance (USFGG) recently launched a website, TrollExposer.com, which is committed to exposing pro-Marcos trolls on Facebook.

“If we can’t get social media platforms to enforce their own community standards, then we need to act ourselves. It is the right of every person to defend themselves from being manipulated by false information,” USFGG national chair Loida Lewis said.

“That’s the reason we turned to Troll Exposer. The spread of harmful disinformation, manipulated narratives, and false propaganda needs to stop.”

Since its creation, numerous Facebook accounts were revealed to be liking or following Marcos-related pages to create the illusion of real user profiles.

Last January, Twitter also suspended more than 300 accounts linked to Marcos supporters for violating the company’s platform manipulation and spam policy.

Although it might be a tough pill to swallow, the trolling culture and the excessive weaponization of social media contributed to Marcos' win. While Marcos was on his “no to negative campaigning” agenda, the chambers of social media were already infiltrated with trolls that disrupt online communities and hone fake news.

During the Brown Bag Series lecture entitled, “Deconstructing election misinformation via Tsek.ph fact checks,” Maria Diosa Labiste and Yvonne Chua revealed that Marcos Jr. benefited the most from these social media trolls, while Robredo has become the most targeted presidential candidate.

“Robredo’s quotes have been mangled, twisted, [or] fabricated to make her look like she is spouting nonsense. She has been called, rather harshly, madumb, lutang, tanga, utal-utal (dumb madam, mindless, stupid, always stuttering),” Chua said.

Given all these, social media has become a game-changer for populist strongmen in technological brainwashing. The implanted abuse and denial in our history through social platforms are causing the deterioration of the Philippines, where we now see elections as myth-making and an era for historical distortion.