KARONG semanaha, atong i-reprint ang abridged version sa Facebook post ni Edelito Sancgo uban sa paglaum nga kini maka-abli sa hunahuna sa minilyon natong kaigsoonan nga nailad o nabiktima pinaagi sa usa ka planadong sindikato sa social media misinformation:
In an interview aired on July 15, 2020, Brittany Kaiser, the author of the explosive “Targetted” book, revealed that former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, son of the late dictator, had approached the highly-scrutinized political data company Cambridge Analytica to “rebrand” the Marcos family’s image on social media.
Kaiser, warned about rampant micro-targeting or the practice of manipulating an individual’s thoughts and sentiments through disinformation tactics and the use of available personal data. She described the Marcoses’ efforts to rebrand their family as historical revisionism fueled by the use of online data.
The goal was to keep running tests “until you actually start to see people’s opinions and attitudes changing.” Since the Marcos and Cambridge Analytica agreed in 2014, massive amounts of propaganda and targeted disinformation produced and amplified by an extensive network of websites, Facebook pages and groups, YouTube, and later on Tiktok channels, and social media influencers appear to be part of a systematic campaign to burnish the image of the Marcoses and pave the way for their further rise in Philippine politics.
The content that this network circulated included numerous claims that sought to alter public perception of the Marcoses by either downplaying or outrightly denying kleptocracy and human rights violations during the Martial Law years, exaggerating Marcos achievements, and vilifying critics, rivals, and mainstream media. The campaign ramped up two years ahead of the 2016 elections and continues to produce and amplify content on a scale that rivals the volume of content circulated by mainstream media groups.
It involves a network of fan pages and groups, meme and viral content pages, pages circulating claims of allegedly “hidden facts” in Philippine history, and pages attacking and undermining mainstream media. The pages and groups involved were observed to be systematically sharing and amplifying each other’s content.
How extensive are these FB fan pages and groups? The campaign ramp up included the creation of hundreds of FB fan groups and pages supporting the Marcos family. As of September 5, 2019, over 360 pages and over 280 groups supporting the family were tracked. Messages posted in groups and pages typically glorified the virtues of authoritarian rule. To a significant extent, the campaign focused on disputing or revising historical accounts about the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth. Altogether, false claims have logged millions of impressions on Facebook and YouTube.
Even for a newbie user of the internet, it’s so easy to check the veracity of such claims by simply typing the keyword “PCGG Year End Accomplishment 2013” on Google and the 2013 Annual Report of PCGG will appear on the top 3 of the search engine. A chart in the report would show that the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) was able to recover more than PhP 166.2 billion ill-gotten wealth from the Marcoses and their cronies from 1986 to 2013.
The print version of the Qatar-based Al Jaseera TV station, published a news on November 8, 2018 that the Sandigangbayan had sentenced the former first lady Imelda Marcos for 6 to 11 years imprisonment for each of the 7 counts for violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act when she illegally transferred funds in the amount $200 million into Swiss foundations in the 1970s as governor of Metro Manila. Yet Bongbong, Imee and Imelda continue to deny these facts. The list of lies and misleading claims continue to this day.
Was Cambridge Analytica’s “Marcos Re-branding Strategy” effective? For the Marcoses, the playbook appears to be working. In May 2019, despite being exposed by most of mainstream media for lying about her academic achievements, Imee Marcos won a seat in the Philippine Senate.
In the run up to the 2022 elections, the primary target of the social media attacks is no less than Vice-President Leni Robredo. It seems that the strategy is working: Two years after the Marcos propaganda campaign ramped up on social media, Bongbong Marcos almost won the vice-presidential race in 2016 in a very narrow contest.
Evidently, pre-2022 presidential election surveys show BBM leading among the pack of presidential candidates. But what is alarming is the fact that what’s happening in the Philippines nowadays is the exact replica of the Cambridge Analytica-run Trump campaign in America wherein righteous and independent-minded persons are “unwittingly converted” into die-hard BBM fanatics.
Kita naglaum ug nag-ampo nga unta ang atong kaigsoonang nangailad niining maong sindikato mahigmata na unta human nila mabasa kining impormasyon. Kay kon dili gihapon sila mahigmata, nan, kining grabeng pagpangilad mahimong mas grabe pa kaayo kay sa Repa ug posibleng mahimong hinungdan sa pagkatumpag ning atong nasud.
