Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- About the Contributors
- 1 Introduction: Change and Continuity Narratives in the Philippines from Duterte to Marcos Jr.
- 2 Much a Duterte about Nothing: Continuity, Complacency, and Crisis in the Philippine Economy (2016–23)
- 3 From Entrepreneur to Saboteur: How the Philippines Won and Lost the South China Sea on Social Media
- 4 Course Correction from Over-Militarization: National Security from the Duterte to the Marcos Jr. Administration
- 5 Duterte’s Federalism and Constitutional Change Project: From Campaign Promise to Abandoned Reform
- 6 Experiencing Grief: Duterte’s Lethal Drug War and Its Widows
- 7 Tsek.ph and the Media’s Pushback against Digital Disinformation
- 8 A Quixotic Quest? Electoral and Political Reforms from Duterte to Marcos Jr.
- 9 The Changing Local Political Dynamics during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Philippine Experience underDuterte (and Marcos Jr.)
- 10 An Unchanging Terrain? Environment and Climate Change in the Philippines from Duterte to Marcos Jr.
- 11 Mitigating Risks, Fostering Resilience: Human Security and Disaster Response Policy from Duterte to Marcos Jr.
- 12 Understanding Gendered Disinformation in the Philippines and Its Implications to Women in Politics
- 13 (Dis)continuities and Disruptions in Labour Migration Governance: The Philippines from the Duterte to the Marcos Jr. Administration
- Index
7 - Tsek.ph and the Media’s Pushback against Digital Disinformation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 July 2025
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- About the Contributors
- 1 Introduction: Change and Continuity Narratives in the Philippines from Duterte to Marcos Jr.
- 2 Much a Duterte about Nothing: Continuity, Complacency, and Crisis in the Philippine Economy (2016–23)
- 3 From Entrepreneur to Saboteur: How the Philippines Won and Lost the South China Sea on Social Media
- 4 Course Correction from Over-Militarization: National Security from the Duterte to the Marcos Jr. Administration
- 5 Duterte’s Federalism and Constitutional Change Project: From Campaign Promise to Abandoned Reform
- 6 Experiencing Grief: Duterte’s Lethal Drug War and Its Widows
- 7 Tsek.ph and the Media’s Pushback against Digital Disinformation
- 8 A Quixotic Quest? Electoral and Political Reforms from Duterte to Marcos Jr.
- 9 The Changing Local Political Dynamics during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Philippine Experience underDuterte (and Marcos Jr.)
- 10 An Unchanging Terrain? Environment and Climate Change in the Philippines from Duterte to Marcos Jr.
- 11 Mitigating Risks, Fostering Resilience: Human Security and Disaster Response Policy from Duterte to Marcos Jr.
- 12 Understanding Gendered Disinformation in the Philippines and Its Implications to Women in Politics
- 13 (Dis)continuities and Disruptions in Labour Migration Governance: The Philippines from the Duterte to the Marcos Jr. Administration
- Index
Summary
To counter various forms of election-related information, media organizations, academe, and civil society built tsek.ph, a collaborative fact-checking organization that played the watchdog role of holding politicians accountable for their campaign statements. This factchecking initiative has won over academe, media, and civil society members to collaborate and verify information during the election campaign period. In the 2019 and 2022 elections, the more prominent forms of disinformation include false and misleading claims concerning the Marcos dictatorship, anti-communist witch-hunting, and hate speech. Online disinformation became the trademark and legacy of President Rodrigo Duterte's administration that deployed trolls, bloggers, and apologists to justify his controversial policies and amplify them through social media platforms. The extent of deception and the reception of such forms of disinformation could help explain the electoral victory of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte in the 2022 elections because disinformation not only worked to their advantage, the purveyors of false and misleading claims have succeeded in seeding false information among misinformed voters.
Keywords: social media; disinformation; fact-checking; tsek.ph; 2022 Elections
Introduction
On his 78th birthday on 28 March 2023, the former president Rodrigo Duterte received a fawning compliment from his successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. “Happy birthday to you, Mr. President. I now understand why sometimes, you would cuss when you were still president”, said Marcos, the namesake and son of a former dictator.
Many newspapers and partisan blog sites reported the greeting felicitously, as if never wanting to pass off the chance of driving traffic to their websites through feel-good news or turning Marcos's inadequacies to his gain. However, the online news site Rappler offered a context for Duterte's aggressive speech habit, which defined his six-year term as president and whose politics portends a Marcos comeback. I argue that Duterte's playbook of hate speech and disinformation left the country's democratic traditions frayed and made it easy for Marcos's historical revisionism—about his father's martial law, dictatorship, and plunder—to mislead voters in the May 2022 elections. Thanks to Duterte's endorsement of Marcos's authoritarian rule, Marcos Jr. was elected president on a disinformation platform seeking to rehabilitate the legacy of his father who was ousted by the 1986 People Power uprising.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Games, Changes, and FearsThe Philippines from Duterte to Marcos Jr, pp. 171 - 202Publisher: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak InstitutePrint publication year: 2024
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.