DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 13 March) – Trolls pounced on the call of former President Rodrigo Duterte to support his daughter Sara’s bid for the Presidency in 2028, in what appears to be an influence operation or “coordinated efforts to manipulate or corrupt public debate for a strategic goal.”
The Duterte patriarch made the pitch for Sara, currently the Vice President and concurrent Education Secretary, during the “candlelight prayer rally” of Hakbang ng Maisug in Cebu City evening of February 25.
MindaNews published on its website a story about it at 12:38 a.m on February 27.
Two hours later, at 2:53 a.m., MindaNews posted on its official Facebook (FB) page a link of the story, as part of our routine news cycle.
After the link of the story was posted on our Facebook page, the first comment came 17 hours later, at 8:21 p.m. Wednesday from Mary Joy Bustamante: “Nakakadismaya na makitang inuuna ni Duterte ang interes ng pamilya kaysa sa kapakanan ng bansa.! 🤦🙄 (It’s a dismay to see that Duterte prioritizes the interest of his family than the welfare of the country!)”
Bustamante’s comment could have easily passed off as a comment from a citizen who is against Duterte but immediately after her post, a pattern would emerge.
Two minutes after Bustamante’s post, April Anne Ramos commented “Ang pagtulak ni Duterte para sa pagkapangulo ni Sara ay amoy ng dynastic na pulitika, na sumisira sa mga demokratikong prinsipyo.😤😡 (Duterte pushing Sara to run for President reeks of dynasty, which is destroying the democratic principles).
Bustamante’s post triggered responses in succession, at intervals less than three minutes apart.
Since our Facebook admins are subscribed to Meta’s native Business Suite app, we started seeing a pattern in terms of the format of the posts and the commenters. New comments appear as notification pop-ups on the phones of Business Suite users, and throughout the night, the MindaNews admins would see each new comment on the social media post.
From 8:21 pm to 11:41 pm, 78 comments lambasting the Dutertes were posted at an average of one every 2.6 minutes.
Several Facebook users pointed out that should Sara seek the presidency, “Magmahal na ang mga bilihin (the prices of commodities will increase).” Some commented that another Duterte as President will be the start of another dynasty and political nepotism. Others said “corruption will continue” and that the Dutertes will be jailed.
The comments would continue the next day, February 29, from 6:25 a.m. to 7:10 a.m. at five-minute intervals.
The initial posts were mostly by users with female names and in Filipino, all harshly directed either to the former President or Sara Duterte, or both.
The succeeding comments, mostly by alleged females posting similar messages and emojis, appear to be a “coordinated, inauthentic behavior,” a key factor in identifying influence operations.
Influence operations involve information cascades that originate from either state, non-state, and proxy (entities covertly working for others) actors either foreign or domestic. It uses narratives that disrupt the health of information ecosystems, and institutions of importance to democratic values, sociopolitical welfare, safety, and peace.
It involves the use of disinformation, propaganda and other harmful content (such as harassment and attacks), delivered in different formats, in a manner that coerces or manipulates behavior and polarizes society.
This IO definition was arrived at following discussions with a shared network of Philippine media organizations dedicated to identifying, analyzing and investigating influence operations in the country.
An inauthentic Facebook user can be referred to as Facebook profiles doing inauthentic behavior. Facebook’s Community Standards do not allow people to “misrepresent themselves on Facebook, use fake accounts, artificially boost the popularity of content or engage in behaviors designed to enable other violations.
Two inauthentic Facebook users posted the same comments on our Facebook post, except the emojis.
To determine authenticity, we checked their accounts to look for patterns in their public posts. We also checked their profile photos to determine if these were authentic or not.
MindaNews also noted that like “Mary Joy Bustamante”and “April Anne,” the Facebook accounts of “Carolina Maine” and “Beverly Rios” were also newly opened accounts that posted shared links, with the oldest account created on December 9, 2023 (Bustamante, the first to comment).
The Facebook account of “Carolina Maine,” who claims to be from Las Piñas with 25 friends, was created only last January 17 and all her posts were shared links. Her profile picture does not show a face.
The FB account of “Beverly Rios,” who also claims to be from Las Piñas with 234 friends, was opened only last January 12.
We reverse image searched the photos in Beverly Rios’ Facebook profile and found out that the cover photo and the profile photo are of two different individuals. The profile photo is taken from one of the photos of Mabelz, a member of T-Pop (Thai pop) trio PiXXiE. The cover photo was taken online from a photo circulating in 2023.
MindaNews chose at random 20 of 100 users who commented on our Facebook post and found them to be inauthentic accounts, all newly-opened in December 2023 and January 2024, all claiming to be from the Philippines, with friends from 25 to 285 but whose posts are mostly shared links.
Here are their profiles, number of friends as of March 4, publicly declared addresses, and first available public posts:
| Facebook (FB) name | FB Friends as of March 4, 2024 | Declared Address | FB account’s first public post |
| MARY JOY BUSTAMANTE | 214 | Gapan, Neva Ecija | December 9, 2023 |
| JOY ANNE SAN JUAN | 228 | Manila City | December 10, 2023 |
| Ella Mae Gilhang | 285 | Quezon City | December 10, 2023 |
| Aikah Gregor | 174 | Tondo, Manila | December 10, 2023 |
| Patricia Gonzales | 152 | Marikina City | December 12, 2023 |
| Katebelle Zaragosa | 144 | Bail, La Union | December 26, 2023 |
| Candice Permejo | 67 | Plaridel, Bulacan | January 5, 2024 |
| Monique Santiago | 78 | Makati City | January 7, 2024 |
| Kiara Lopez | 27 | Caloocan City | January 7, 2024 |
| Margaux Javier | 21 | Taguig City | January 9, 2024 |
| Robin James Manalo | 60 | Las Piñas City | January 9, 2024 |
| James Tin | Unavailable | Samal, Davao, Philippines | January 11, 2024 |
| APRIL ANNE RAMOS | 78 | Makati City | January 12, 2024 |
| BEVERLY RIOS | 234 | Las Piñas City | January 12, 2024 |
| LIANNE MATEO | 75 | Taguig City | January 12, 2024 |
| Jaize Mot | 44 | Mandaluyong City | January 12, 2024 |
| CAROLINA MAINE | 25 | Las Piñas City | January 17, 2024 |
| Edward Gomez | 29 | Las Piñas City | January 17, 2024 |
| ANNABELLE TAMAYO | 92 | Marikina City | January 25, 2024 |
| ALICE CASTRO | 139 | Quezon City | January 25, 2024 |
“The Dutertes’ move only perpetuates the culture of political nepotism, hindering genuine progress and merit-based leadership 😡,” said Facebook user Alice Castro, whose FB account,
opened on January 25, was not authentic.
MindaNews conducted a reverse image search of Castro’s profile picture using Yandex, and the result showed a resemblance to @sseraqueen, an account that has 43.8k followers on Instagram. Yandex is among the tools to determine old photos that are reused online.
Another Facebook user, Lianne Mateo commented: “Napakalakas ng ambisyon ng mag amang Digong at Sara na to! Hindi na sapat ang kapangyarihan niyo! Wala na kayong mauuto!! 😡” (Digong and his daughter Sara have a very high ambition. You’re not that powerful anymore. You can’t fool anyone anymore).
Mateo’s FB account, which states she has 75 friends, was created only on January 12 and her public posts are mostly shared links.
A reverse Google image search showed Mateo’s profile picture is the same as that of Indonesian influencer Gabriella Ekaputri, who has 1.8 million TikTok followers, 1 million Instagram followers, and 93.7k YouTube subscribers.
Ekaputri was featured in an article from IDN Times using the same image which was used by the Facebook profile “Lianne Mateo.”
“Maneuver or sway”
The use of “army of trolls” or fake Facebook accounts has been used as a tactic to maneuver or sway social media users to a certain stance. Some meddled with national issues, using thought-provoking and emotional comments, which could hijack Facebook’s algorithm.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network also identifies them as those “who antagonize or provoke others into an emotional response.”
Open-source disinformation monitoring framework
DISARM Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the United States, has been monitoring, describing, and understanding disinformation behavior in several platforms, through an open source, continuing academic research-built framework.
Under such framework, one of the examples is for a certain party to share information to “amplify narratives and/or manipulate narratives” using fake profiles.
“Trolls operate wherever there’s a socially divisive issue, (including) issues that can be politicized,” the DISARM Foundation stated.
As of March 7, 9:45 a.m., the MindaNews Facebook post drew 93 angry reactions and 100 comments, mostly castigating the Dutertes.
When MindaNews conducts fact checks and IO investigations, the process includes a check on Crowdtangle to see the impact of Facebook posts, in terms of interactions.
Based on Crowdtangle analytics, our Facebook post generated 239 public and private interactions as of 10:21 a.m. on March 7.
Facebook policy
Meta does not allow the abuse of Facebook tools to help individuals “misrepresent themselves on Facebook, use fake accounts, artificially boost the popularity of content or engage in behaviors designed to enable other violations under our Community Standards.” (emphasis supplied)
For Facebook to take down fake accounts, users need to report them manually through Facebook’s reporting mechanism. Facebook also conducts its own search of fake accounts. (Ian Carl Espinosa / MindaNews)
(This alert was produced with support from an Internews initiative aiming to build the capacity of news organizations to understand and monitor disinformation and influence operations in the Philippines.)
