AI and disinformation fuel political rivalries in the Philippines

Manila, Philippines – When erstwhile Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the International Criminal Court (ICC) successful March, Sheerah Escuerdo spoke to a section tv station, welcoming the politician’s detention connected charges of execution linked to his warfare connected drugs.

Escuerdo, who mislaid her 18-year-old brother, Ephraim, to Duterte’s war, clutched a representation of her sibling during the interrogation with News 5 Everywhere arsenic she demanded justness for his killing.

Days later, she was shocked to find an AI-generated video of her slain member circulating connected Facebook, successful which helium said helium was live and accused his sister of lying.

“I’m alive, not dead. Are they paying you to bash this?” the computer-generated representation of Ephraim said.

The video, posted online by a pro-Duterte influencer with 11,000 followers, instantly drew thousands of views connected Facebook.

One of the comments read, “Fake cause warfare victims”.

It was Escudero and her brother’s representation from her News 5 Everywhere interrogation that the influencer had utilized to falsify their family’s tragedy. The video has since been reposted countless times, spreading to different societal media platforms and resulting successful Duterte supporters hounding Escuerdo daily.

“I aftermath up to hundreds of notifications and hatred messages,” she told Al Jazeera.

“The worst happening is speechmaking comments of radical who judge this is real!” she added.

The aforesaid benignant of harassment has been levelled astatine different vocal cause warfare victims, particularly those nether the radical Rise Up, who actively campaigned for the ICC’s intervention.

Duterte’s apprehension successful March came amid a bitter powerfulness conflict betwixt the ex-leader and his erstwhile ally, the incumbent president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Their confederation collapsed past twelvemonth owed to disagreements implicit policy, including Marcos Jr’s courting of the United States. The president’s supporters are present starring an effort to impeach Duterte’s daughter, Sara, from her station arsenic the country’s vice president.

As tensions person escalated, supporters of Duterte and Marcos Jr person stepped up integer smear campaigns, utilizing disinformation. Apart from fake accounts and doctored images, the disinformation premix has noticeably included AI-generated content.

Both the Marcos Jr and Duterte clans person been known to deploy disinformation tactics. Marcos Jr won the predetermination successful 2022 pursuing a disinformation run that sought to whitewash his begetter Ferdinand Marcos’s brutal regularisation during the 70s and 80s.

But fact-checkers and experts accidental the caller uptick successful posts peddling mendacious narratives tin beryllium attributed much to the Duterte camp.

Disinformation nation

Victims of the cause war, their families, supporters and adjacent their lawyers accidental incessant online disinformation has targeted them.

In a statement, the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), which represents Rise Up, a radical of cause warfare victims, said the “online hate” was being “directed astatine widows, mothers, and daughters of cause warfare victims, attempting to intimidate them into silence”.

Both NUPL and Rise Up person present formally requested the authorities to analyse the expanding online harassment.

The run by Duterte’s supporters aims to discredit the ICC, demonise their detractors and overgarment their household arsenic persecuted victims starring to and aft the May 2025 mid-term polls, according to Danilo Arao, wide media adept and convener of predetermination watchdog Kontra-Daya.

“The Duterte campy aims to deodorize the representation of some patriarch and daughter. They volition edifice to disinformation to get what they want, adjacent if it means twisting definite data,” Arao told Al Jazeera.

He pointed to posts circulating online that the ICC consented to assistance Duterte’s petition for an interim release, which successful world was denied.

The surge successful disinformation has caused interest among Filipinos.

A study released successful June by Reuters Digital News recovered that a grounds fig of Filipinos – astir 7 retired of 10 – were much acrophobic with disinformation than ever before.

In the aforesaid month, Duterte-allied senator, Ronald Dela Rosa, shared an AI-generated video connected his authoritative Facebook page. The video, which showed a young antheral criticising the “selective justice” targeting Sara Duterte, was posted connected June 14, garnering astatine slightest 8.6 cardinal views earlier it was taken down.

The vice president defended the video, saying there’s “no occupation sharing an AI video supporting maine arsenic agelong arsenic it’s not for profit”.

Arao, the wide media expert, countered, saying the person is trying to normalise disinformation, and that she “badly needs media literacy”.

Tsek.ph, the Philippines’ pioneer fact-checking coalition, noted that information checks connected posts astir Duterte’s ICC apprehension implicit a six-week-period relationship for astir a 4th of the 127 quality articles curated by the group.

The fig surpasses the 2 twelve pieces of quality related to Sara Duterte’s impeachment.

On Sara Duterte’s deepfake defence, Tsek.ph coordinator Professor Rachel Khan told Al Jazeera that “for the educated, it reinforces their already tainted representation of disregarding truth. But for followers, it could reenforce the dictum that ‘perception is truth.’”

In reality, the popularity of the Duterte household has waned significantly.

Opinion and support surveys conducted successful March bespeak that astatine slightest 51 percent of the nationalist privation Rodrigo Duterte to beryllium tried for his alleged crimes. Likewise, polls successful June recovered that astatine slightest 66 percent of radical privation Sara Duterte to face allegations of corruption against her done an impeachment process.

AI growth

The authorities of past twelvemonth launched a task unit to mitigate disinformation and the usage of AI. However, spikes successful disinformation were already noticeable successful December arsenic the Marcos-Duterte rivalry heated up.

Tsek.ph tracked the expanding usage of AI successful disinformation earlier the mid-term elections held successful May this year. It recovered that from February to May, retired of 35 unsocial altered claims, astir a 3rd “likely progressive deepfake exertion to impersonate nationalist figures oregon distort reality”.

“This is simply a occupation of quality behaviour, not AI. It’s a disinformation power operations problem, exacerbated by the unethical usage of AI tools,” Carljoe Javier, enforcement manager of Data and AI Ethics PH, told Al Jazeera.

All mainstream governmental forces successful the Philippines have, to immoderate extent, deployed AI technologies to boost their agendas. The latest OpenAI Safety Report revealed that Comm&Sense, a Manila-based tech firm, utilized AI for a run utilizing thousands of pro‑Marcos Jr and anti‑Duterte comments crossed Facebook and TikTok.

Besides generating content, the steadfast besides utilized AI to analyse governmental trends and adjacent draught nationalist relations strategies.

The study said Comm&Sense manufactured TikTok channels to station identical videos with variant captions portion handling ammunition accounts to station comments and boost engagement.

The usage of AI to outline plans, not conscionable make content, marks a displacement distant from the Marcos Jr medication employing troll armies arsenic helium did successful his 2022 campaign.

“If you person the resources and the bully pulpit of the government, you tin spend to support connected swatting the Dutertes and their partisans for immoderate statements they person made against the Marcos government,” said Joel Ariate Jr, a researcher tracking governmental developments astatine the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center.

“If you enactment AI successful the hands of an already bully nationalist relations oregon selling team, the capableness for disinformation is amplified by truthful much. They tin person 1 connection and instantly make 20 antithetic versions of it,” explained Javier.

The Philippines has respective pieces of authorities successful legislature concerning the liable usage of AI. For a steadfast argumentation approach, Javier believes that method and ethical experts would beryllium crucial.

He said helium hoped the country’s leaders tin instrumentality important steps, but said helium has doubts astir their appetite for ethical AI legislation.

“Is determination capable propulsion for legislators to beforehand a argumentation fixed that they whitethorn beryllium benefitting from the existent authorities of governmental operations?” helium asked.