‘Robredo has 10,000 socmed volunteeers’– Osmeña boasts

WITH social media platform giant, ‘Facebook,’ doing the censuring and taking down of pro-government and anti-Robredo accounts, the election propaganda of Vice President Leni Robredo has started to dominate social media, especially, FB, boosted by some “10,000 volunteers” hired for the purpose by former senator, Sergio ‘Serge’ Osmeña III.

The confirmation that the opposition has hired such number of ‘volunteers’ for Robredo’s sinking presidential campaign, was confirmed by Osmeña in an anti-Marcos and anti-government article by the New York Times last April 13, 2022 written by Sui-Lee and Camille Elemia (‘The Philippines Toppled One Marcos, Now His Son May Become President),

The article quoted the boast of Osmeña that “he had hired 10,000 volunteers to wage a counteroffensive against the Marcos campaign by releasing videos on the (purported) economic devastation and human rights violations of the Marcos years.”

With Facebook and its fact checkers apparently now working in tandem with the camp of Robredo to stifle, silence and block any post even by government offices, it is no wonder that Robredo’s glossy articles have now clearly started to dominate social media and the mainstream media.

But the “10,000 volunteers” hired by Osmeña to demonize Marcos while expectedly boosting the image of Robredo under the controlled social media environment now imposed by Facebook in the Philippines appear to not have dented the surging numbers of presidential frontrunner, former senator, Ferdinand ‘Bongbong/BBM’ Marcos Jr.

In the latest poll conducted by Pulse Asia between April 16 to April 21, 2022 involving 2, 400 respondents and released on May 2, 2022 or just a week before the May 9 polls, Marcos has a commanding 33 percent lead over Robredo at 56 percent, against Robredo’s 23 percent. They were followed by Sen. Emmanuel ‘Pacman’ Paquiao at 7 percent, Manila Mayor Francisco ‘Isko Moreno’ Domagoso at 4 percent and Sen. Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson at just 2 percent.

Facebook rightly to be under fire

Entering into the last two weeks of the election campaign, Facebook’s role in influencing the result in favor of Robredo has become under close scrutiny, especially after it took down last April 25, 2022, the account of Atty. Vic Rodriguez, the chief of staff and spokesman of Marcos Jr. Rodriguez said that according to Facebook, his account has been taken down for the next 30 days.

A week before this, on April 14, 2022, Facebook also ‘flagged’ (warned) National Security Adviser (NSA) Secretary Hermogenes Esperon.

Esperon was warned by Facebook that his post calling on Filipinos to unite against the Communist Party of the Philippines, its armed wing, the New People’s Army and its united front group, the National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF), “violated” the foreign company’s “standards.” The CPP-NPA-NDF, all terrorist organizations, are allied with Robredo for this election but have been long-time allies of the Liberal Party (LP), Robredo’s political party.

The warning on Esperon was immediately followed by Facebook’s systematic blocking of the account of government public platforms, such as the Philippine News Agency (PNA).

On the same day, respected journalist and former Philippine Ambassador to Greece, Rigoberto Tiglao, in a post on ‘Twitter,’ said Facebook has also taken down his account for 90 days.

Facebook also did not forget to block or censure the various accounts connected with the National Task Force to End Local Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), including the accounts of the members of the task force’s “Stratcom” (Strategic Communications) Cluster.

In all of these, Facebook merely said it would be “investigating” the incidents and would “unblock” the flagged posts accordingly.

Facebook was merely forced to restore the accounts of Rodriguez and the PNA and removed its warning on Esperon after receiving wide condemnation from top Philippine officials and also from the National Press Club of the Philippines (NPC), the country’s biggest organization of active members of the press.