We’ve seen this film before: a showdown between a liberal woman with a career in government service, whose campaign drew unprecedented crowds and celebrity endorsements, and a populist with a criminal track record and policies that would impinge on human rights. The most recent elections in the Philippines and the United States tested whether the truth still had a hold on society, and it failed.
Filipinos tuning into the United States election last month may have experienced some déjà vu. The election fractured families and friendships. For some, it led to disillusionment in political participation altogether. Similarly, the post-mortem punditry was quick to diagnose blame toward actors on their side of the political aisle. It all came down to big tech, disinformation, economics, influencers, the left, the liberals, Gen Z, the media, sexism, and so on.
In a post-election livestream, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it succinctly: The impulse to pin down a single cause over others was “losing the forest for the trees.” Having covered and observed a similar upset in the Philippines in 2022, democracy advocates should know all these factors coexist and can be simultaneously true.
Following burnout from covering the election and three consecutive years of online harassment campaigns under the Rodrigo Duterte presidency, I took some time off to study disinformation and how the Philippine news industry can navigate it. Here are a few of my observations.
A never-ending campaign
Populists are in a state of perpetual campaigning. Kamala Harris, like Leni Robredo in 2022, was racing not just against a popular candidate; they were racing against time. Both took on candidacy a few months before the election, whereas their opponents have been campaigning for years.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr. tapped into, and weaponized nostalgia from his father’s regime. When he lost the vice presidency by a narrow margin in 2016, one could argue his 2022 presidential campaign officially began. Researchers found the earliest digital evidence of pro-Marcos historical revisionism dated to the 2000s. Videos on the fabled Tallano gold, which explained the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth as a gift from an ancient king, were seeded on YouTube over a decade ago. On Marcos’ official channel, he produced sleekly edited content about his family. Combined with Duterte’s influencer and keyboard army, they crafted a formidable online narrative that sent the UniTeam sailing to the top positions in the country in a landslide.
Information operations are not a race, but a marathon. Campaigns do not begin with the election period. They are happening now, online and offline, 24/7.
Since then, that alliance has deteriorated — thanks in the latest to Vice President Sara Duterte’s threat of assassination against Marcos Jr., his wife Liza Araneta, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez. The online machinery that once helped prop up the Marcos-Duterte tandem is now eating its own tail. In the last two months alone, Sara Duterte’s threat was followed by live, blow-by-blow commentary by pro-Duterte vloggers; fake accounts traced to China amplified a deepfake of Marcos snorting coke; and the military, which the Dutertes tried to goad into overstepping into politics, disabled its Facebook comment section after being inundated by trolls.
Information operations are not a race, but a marathon. Campaigns do not begin with the election period. They are happening now, online and offline, 24/7. Understanding this might finally compel pro-democracy forces to campaign — and strategize — like lives depend on it.
Simply revelling in the schadenfreude of the UniTeam infighting, no matter how temporarily satisfying, does not plug the narrative gap in the information warfare between the Duterte and Marcos dynasties. An alternative option must be presented – or better yet, demonstrated.
Reclaiming People Power
In the last month, the Dutertes have invoked the 1986 People Power revolution following Sara Duterte’s death threat toward Marcos Jr. Hundreds of their followers have mobilized at the EDSA Shrine. It’s concerning that the only organized counter-narrative is offered by the Marcos administration, whose supporters also recently gathered at the monument. It was only last year that P55 million advertisement targeting the EDSA revolution was aired nationwide, in what was seen as part of a larger campaign for charter change under the Marcos administration.
The opposition came close to a reimagination of what People Power could mean in the 2022 Robredo campaign, which saw unprecedented public participation. Its closing rally drew a record 780,000 attendees. Analysts suggested the opposition launch a new political party or a similar political front to maintain its base and complement the Angat Buhay organization, which Robredo said would be “the largest volunteer network in the country.” When the campaign ended, there was grief and yearning for the experience to not have been a moment, but a movement. Now, it seems the opposition is sleeping on the momentum they built, at least to political outsiders.
When I profiled Taylor Swift impersonator and drag queen Taylor Sheesh last year, I was struck by how overtly political her performance of “Long Live” was. A crowd of thousands gestured “L” signs — historically, “Laban” (fight) during 1986, later repurposed for Leni Robredo in 2022. Backstage, Sheesh said this happened at most of their concerts. A handful of young fans I spoke to said they wanted to relive campaign feelings of communal gathering and shared values.
For a social movement to mature in a post-election setting, it cannot bank solely on hope: it has to draw on duty, collaboration, and action in service of a vision.
The energy is present but dormant. For it to make tangible change, it needs to be harnessed, organized and transformed into a post-election, policy-driven political movement. If leaders don’t step up to channel that, it will remain fragmented, and can fizzle out before achieving clear goals.
For a social movement to mature in a post-election setting, it cannot bank solely on hope: it has to draw on duty, collaboration, and action in service of a vision. If the opposition wielded its full political power, the administration might be compelled to give International Criminal Court cooperation some serious thought, or certainly some senators would not still be publicly considering granting Sara Duterte’s budget without scrutiny.
A Shared Story
History has taught us that if the public does not demand public accountability, the fickleness of the Philippine justice system guarantees a comeback for divisive political characters.
This is not a knock on individual opposition leaders or supporters. An embattled De Lima, for example, still carries herself at hearings where legislators insensitively seat her close to Duterte, even resulting in him raising a fist at her. It is about collective leadership: The opposition can choose whether it will be a dark horse, or a dead horse. It can take the reins and reimagine the Philippines’ vibrant democratic practice for the 21st century — or keep resistance confined to drag shows and Barbie screenings. Progressives must propose an appealing (counter)narrative and build the networks to make their pitch compete in a disinformation-riddled ecosystem.
The ruling Marcos and Duterte dynasties know how crucial the ordinary time between elections is to expand and cement their base. With cracks in their alliance, democracy advocates can position themselves as an alternative anti-establishment movement — one that has learned from the lessons of the liberal elitism that enabled Duterte’s rise.
In the wake of the U.S. election, Ocasio-Cortez emphasized the importance of building community. Of course, it’s natural to rest, recover, and recalibrate after an exhausting campaign. But we can’t be victims of electoral circumstances forever. The Philippines is now staring down the barrel of another election. Millions in confidential fund spending has been flagged down by the Commission on Audit and in Congress hearings, with fake receipts traced to Sara Duterte’s office. Building communities and safe spaces is not just about staying in an echo chamber; it’s about growing these spaces too.
The campaign for truth-telling is no longer the realm of journalists alone, who struggle with failing business models, anti-news algorithms, and potential censorship; they are everyone’s business. Disinformation machinery has dark money and troll farms, but liberal forces also have a few things going for them: an unprecedented number of influencers, volunteers, and an unmatched ability to mobilize.
Creative and cultural practitioners can help produce engaging, educational, evergreen content that can resonate with a wider audience. Consider the viral 2016 Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law (CARMMA) campaign where millennials met martial law veterans, geared toward building bridges instead of burning them — that tell an alternative story to Facebook’s dominantly pro-Duterte slant. Narrative-making about the version of society we want also extends offline: Research suggests neighborhoods with more community pantries tend to vote for the opposition. Among Filipino migrants, churches and unions can influence how people vote, with union members being more resistant to right-wing messaging. If the general public doesn’t see how engaged, exciting, and exhilarating a democratic movement can be, then consider the next election ceded before it even started.
Societies are enthralled by stories. In the era of disinformation, the Philippines has lost its shared story; members of the public, even on the same political sides, cannot agree on what led us here. But let’s not lose the forest for the trees. Re-establishing a story requires a good pitch, and a neverending campaign. For believers of democracy, the best time to reclaim the public narrative is today. The next best day is tomorrow.
