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Fake rallies, false quotes: Duterte's arrest triggers wave of disinformation

March 21, 2025 | 1:54pm

Fake rallies, false quotes: Duterte's arrest triggers wave of disinformation

Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte attends a senate probe on the drug war during his administration, in Manila on October 28, 2024. Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte strongly defended his deadly drug war as he testified October 28 at a senate probe of the crackdown. Police said the campaign left more than 6,000 people dead, but rights groups estimate tens of thousands of mostly poor men were killed by officers and vigilantes, often without proof they were linked to drugs.

AFP / Jam Sta Rosa

MANILA, Philippines — Former President Rodrigo Duterte's arrest has unleashed a flood of false information that mainly portrays him as a victim, with a fact-checking coalition reporting that spurious claims about his detention have exceeded that of Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment.

Fabricated quotes from celebrities and world leaders, manipulated videos of unrelated events presented as pro-Duterte rallies, and a coordinated messaging campaign that framed his arrest as a "kidnapping" have spread rapidly across multiple social media platforms since Duterte's arrest on March 11.

The 79-year-old former president was arrested and swiftly transferred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague last week, where he now faces charges of crimes against humanity related to his administration's anti-drug campaign.

Tsek.ph — a coalition of 24 organizations from media, academia, and civil society — has reported that fact checks on spurious posts about Duterte's arrest now account for nearly a quarter of the 127 articles curated from its partners since its relaunch in early February.

According to Tsek.ph's analysis released Wednesday, March 19, this surpasses the articles on Sara Duterte's impeachment, which accounted for only 18% of all fact-checked claims. The vice president was impeached by the House of Representatives on February 5.

Manufactured celebrity support

The flood of disinformation began within hours of Duterte's arrest.

"Deceptive narratives, mostly favorable to the 79-year-old Duterte (83%), began flooding online platforms hours after he arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport from Hong Kong," wrote Yvonne Chua, project coordinator of Tsek.ph and an associate professor at the University of the Philippines College of Media and Communication.

TV host and comedian Vice Ganda was among the first victims when a post featuring their image alongside a fabricated quote praising Duterte's leadership in the war on drugs and the COVID-19 pandemic began circulating across platforms. One TikTok post alone garnered 1.6 million views, while several Facebook posts collectively amassed 84,117 shares, according to Tsek.ph.

The Tsek.ph analysis also identified at least three manufactured statements falsely attributed to US President Donald Trump. Logos of major international news outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC and Fox News were misused to create convincing but entirely fake content supporting Duterte.

In some cases, satirical content featuring fictional lawyers from American television shows like "Legally Blonde" and "Suits" was later presented as factual by large pro-Duterte online communities, including a Facebook group with more than 173,500 members.

Other forms of manipulation

Tsek.ph also documented numerous instances where footage of unrelated events was misrepresented as showing support for the former president.

"Old videos of domestic and foreign events unrelated to the former president’s arrest were mispresented as massive pro-Duterte rallies. The falsehoods were inserted primarily in the title, text overlay or caption," Chua wrote.

A YouTube video from sports media outlet ESPN FC showing four million Argentinians celebrating their 2022 FIFA World Cup victory was falsely presented as a pro-Duterte rally on Recto Avenue in Manila. Similarly, footage of Serbian protesters demonstrating against their government on March 1 was misrepresented as protests in The Hague against Duterte's detention.

Tsek.ph partners also identified instances of synthetic images created with generative artificial intelligence circulating among pro-Duterte groups, including AI-generated images depicting massive crowds supposedly rallying behind "Duterte senators."

Cross-platform spread. The surge of disinformation spread widely across multiple platforms, with Tsek.ph finding that 92% of spurious content appeared on at least two different platforms.

Facebook was the main driver (73%), with significant distribution also occurring on TikTok (43%). This is followed by Instagram and YouTube (20%), X (17%), and Threads (7%).

'Kidnapping' narratives. In its previous report, Philstar.com also documented a coordinated campaign to frame Duterte's ICC arrest as an unlawful "kidnapping."

Approximately 200 Facebook accounts and pages simultaneously posted identical text within a 12-hour window between Duterte's morning arrest and his late-night flight to The Hague.

Hours after this messaging began spreading online, similar "kidnapping" terminology was echoed by Duterte's daughter, Veronica "Kitty" Duterte, who posted on Instagram: "This is the plane they used to kidnap my dad. #NeverForget." Vice President Sara Duterte similarly told reporters at Villamor Air Base that night: "It's some sort of—I don't know—what you call 'state kidnapping.'"

Harassment of victims' families

As disinformation about Duterte's arrest spreads, families of victims in his drug war have also faced increasing harassment from his supporters, according to human rights groups.

Rise Up for Life and Rights, an advocacy group for drug war victims, documented "a sharp spike in hate speech, threats and harassment, especially targeted at women who have been speaking out on the killing of their loved ones."

"The internet is also again suddenly flooded with misleading and downright false information deliberately designed to drumbeat support or magnify support for Duterte, some even resorting to victims' families' character assassination, sparing not even the judges of the ICC," the group said in a March 17 statement.

The organization cited these ongoing threats as evidence that Duterte should be denied interim release, noting his "penchant for revenge is strong" and that he "must be prohibited from any return to the Philippines."

The National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL) similarly condemned "the orchestrated campaign of disinformation, harassment, and gender-based online violence" targeting ICC assistant to counsel Krissy Conti, the families of drug war victims, and other human rights defenders in their March 19 statement.

"These attacks, driven by Duterte's network of trolls and enablers, aim to silence those seeking justice and obstruct ongoing proceedings before the International Criminal Court," the NUPL statement read.

Duterte appeared before ICC pre-trial chamber judges Iulia Motoc, Socorro Flores Liera, and Reine Alapini-Gansou via video link from the ICC Detention Center in Scheveningen on March 14.

The former president is currently running for mayor of Davao City in the upcoming May elections.

Editor's Note: Philstar.com is a founding member of Tsek.ph, the first fact-checking network in the Philippines. This report has been published independently, following editorial guidelines and standards.