Supporters of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte are known to be fierce and vocal, especially online. The International Criminal Court (ICC) experienced this first-hand last week when the president’s supporters started flooding their Facebook page with comments against their ongoing probe of Duterte’s war on drugs.
The comments were pointed out by computer programmer Carlos Nazareno during the Democracy and Disinformation Forum in Manila on Tuesday.
“All the posts of the past two days have been swarmed and attacked by Filipino trolls. Every single post. And it’s crazy and it’s full of non-sequiturs,” he said.
Last week, the ICC announced that they have started a preliminary examination of alleged human rights violations brought by Duterte’s war on drugs. The comments date as far back as six days ago, just a day after the ICC announced the probe.
While some of the comments can be found under the official post that announced the examination, many of the comments are on posts that don’t have anything to do with the Philippines or Duterte at all.
“ICC meddling with Philippines which is a progressing country over accusations of opposing part? Wow. Sorry Syria, Kenya, Israel, Iraq… u r not a priority. U need help and money but ICC needed it badly too,” Facebook user Claire Voyant said in a post condemning child soldiers.
Apart from criticizing the ICC’s decision, a lot of commenters also brought up unrelated topics like the ongoing Dengavaxia vaccine investigation.
The vaccine was recently found to have intensified dengue symptoms in some people who were injected with it. Dengvaxia was acquired by the government under the administration of President Noynoy Aquino, who’s part of the Liberal Party (LP) that opposes Duterte.
“ICC I challenge you to investigate [Duterte] about drug war but you must know the victims of Dengvaccia (sic) vaccine they inject thousands of children and most of them suffering illness and others are die this is insane ICC this is madness,” Jay Beltran commented on the same Facebook post.
Others also explicitly criticize LP members for remaining silent on the Dengvaxia issue, with one even calling them “pretender human rights [advocates].”
Duterte’s supporters have used social media to promote and defend the president ever since he was campaigning for the 2016 elections. While there are many who truly believe in what the president stands for, a study released last week titled Architects of Networked Disinformation found that his community of supporters did not form as organically as many are made to believe.
According to the report, many of Duterte’s online supporters are actually part of an organized hierarchy headed by professionals from the advertising and PR industries, a common practice in politics.
These executives hire influencers to share content that are in line with a politician’s values or desired image. People are also hired to like and share these posts to make it look like a politician has an engaged and dedicated community behind him or her.
This would explain why most of the comments in the ICC’s Facebook page raise similar issues.
Since Nazareno shed light on these comments, those who are anti-Duterte have also started to flood the ICC’s Facebook page, this time agreeing to the preliminary examination.
