MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. said Monday that the government will be implementing a media and information literacy campaign to combat disinformation.
Without acknowledging the rampant spread of falsehoods that helped spruce up his image during his campaign for the presidency, as documented in a study by fact-checking coalition Tsek.ph, Marcos said that misinformation and disinformation are "a problem that we in the Philippines also suffer from, as I guess all of us do around the world.”
Speaking at the 14th edition of the International Conference of Information Commissioners (ICIC), Marcos said that the government will roll out a media literacy program that will be “digital, multimedia, and youth-oriented” as part of its Freedom of Information initiative.
Marcos also said: “We, too, recognize as a matter of principle that fake news should have no place in modern society."
A Tsek.ph analysis of fact checks in 2022 found that a "firehose of disinformation" flooded the days leading up to election day in May, with supporters of the Marcos-Duterte tandem successfully "boosting narratives in their favor through an increase in the volume of negative messages against [former Vice President Leni] Robredo."
Robredo was Marcos' top rival in the 2022 national polls, although the latter won by a large margin and a majority vote at the end of the elections.
The fact-checking coalition found that 92% of fact-checks it analyzed about Marcos were "false or misleading information in his favor" as of April 30. Before this, the fact-checking coalition found that Marcos was also the biggest beneficiary of fake news.
Marcos in 2022 insisted that he was a victim of fake news and that there is no group of paid trolls helping spread disinformation in his favor.
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The government's planned digital media literacy campaign was first announced in March through the Presidential Communications Office (PCO). A representative of PCO said that they will be conducting a study to identify platforms with fake news peddlers and communities most susceptible to disinformation.