In the country, which has among the largest number of social media users in the world, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube have been inundated with propaganda posts relating to the May 9 election.

Polls predict a landslide victory for Marcos Jr, nicknamed "Bongbong", after decades of his family's efforts to reinstate the presidential palace they fled in 1986.

Marcos Jr's critics accuse him of portraying his father's two decades of dictatorship as a time of peace and prosperity and of wanting to clear his family of accusations of human rights abuses and embezzlement.

These efforts seem to be bearing fruit, especially among young voters.

Born a decade after the popular uprising that drove the Marcos into exile, 25-year-old Al Contrata is set to vote for Marcos Jr, based on what he read on Facebook.

"I learned that the infrastructure was built at the time of President Marcos. Since then, I have seen it in a good light", explains this driver who in 2016 had voted for Rodrigo Duterte.

Al Contrata, 25, supporter of Bongbong Marcos, on March 10, 2022 in Manila Jam STA ROSA AFP

This resident of the Manila region wants to believe that "+ Bongbong + will continue what his father started".

The misinformation around the presidential election mainly concerns two candidates: Marcos Jr and outgoing vice-president Leni Robredo, according to analysis by AFP Fact Check and Tsek.ph, the Philippine fact-checking association.

"Hard to compete"

"The data shows that Ms. Robredo is the subject of a majority of negative messages and that Marcos Jr enjoys an overwhelming majority of favorable messages," say Maria Diosa Labiste and Yvonne Chua of Tsek.ph.

Such a phenomenon had already marked the presidential election of 2016.

Marcos Jr. enjoys the support of his family stronghold, in the north of the archipelago, and of his alliance with Sara Duterte, candidate for the vice-presidency and daughter of the outgoing president.

However, social networks remain essential, especially Facebook.

Philippine Vice President and presidential candidate Leni Robredo during an election rally in Pasig, a suburb of Manila, March 20, 2022 Ted ALJIBE AFP

Since Marcos Jr's short-headed loss to Ms Robredo in the 2016 VP race, the pages devoted to Marcos have been teeming with false information ranging from the origin of the family's fortune to economic progress made. under his father.

Among those reviewed by AFP is that the father's fortune is said to have originated from a huge payment in gold made by a client when he was a lawyer.

AFP has verified dozens of false or misleading claims about Ms Robredo, including doctored photos and videos aimed at portraying her as stupid or a communist.

Over the past year, nearly 75 million reactions, comments or shares have been recorded on more than 100 pro-Marcos pages, according to social media analytics tool Crowdtangle.

For comparison, only 39 million were counted for the same number of pages aimed at promoting Ms. Robredo.

"It's hard to compete with the Marcos machinery because it started six years ago," agrees Cleve Arguelles, a political scientist at De La Salle University in Manila.

"Long term investment"

"They've really worked hard to be dominant (on social media) and they're now reaping the benefits," he says.

“It is impossible to say how many pages were created by real activists or by the candidates”.

In January, Twitter suspended more than 300 accounts suspected of being linked to supporters of Marcos Jr, for violating the platform's rules on manipulation and spamming.

The candidate denied these accusations.

Marcos Jr's strength on social media is the result of a "long-term investment" in rehabilitating the family, said Jonathan Corpus Ong, a disinformation researcher at Harvard University.

Bongbong Marcos election rally in Bocaue, north of Manila, February 8, 2022 Ted ALJIBE AFP / Archives

After the death of the deposed dictator in 1989, his heirs returned to the Philippines and did everything possible to return to the forefront of the political scene while distancing themselves from the past.

Clan members often present themselves as victims, especially because of the way they are treated by the media.

To combat misinformation, Facebook said it is working with the Philippine Election Commission.

But for Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist and co-founder of the Rappler news site, social networks, including Facebook, could do more.

"You can't have clean elections if you don't have clean facts," she says.

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© 2022 AFP