Soft imagery, alternate realities: PH tactics serve as regional blueprint for high-impact disinfo

By John Hurt Allauigan,
PressOne.PH

Last of two parts

GRAPHICS BY NIKKO BALBEDINA

Fabricated tributes: Content mills systematically mass-produced AI-generated art supposedly crafted to pay tribute to ex-president Duterte and create an image of a respected statesman, PressOne.PH found.

• The network deployed 77 distinct posts of fabricated “Duterte AI Art,” peaking in May 2025—just two months after the former president’s ICC arrest—creating an illusion of grassroots support for his release.
• Captions claimed that the AI images were real, physical tributes created by ordinary Filipinos using materials like coconut shells and recycled items, or by foreign admirers from the Netherlands, Japan, and Arab nations.
• A mid-May campaign featuring “Netherland People” triggered massive engagement, with two posts from Bagong Pilipinas 2026 alone amassing a combined 278,000 likes and 10,000 shares on May 13 and 14.

Read Part 1: ‘Babification, tribute art’: Facebook content mills leverage AI to boost Dutertes

Fake shell art: The network’s highest documented engagement occurred on May 5, 2025, when Duterte News Info published an AI-generated “shell art” image that drew 290,000 likes, 15,600 comments, and 8,400 shares.

• On May 3, 2025, the same page published a fabricated “coconut art” image that pulled in 201,000 likes and 5,200 shares, demonstrating the high reach of these content mills.
• A similar “coconut art” image appeared on Bagong Pilipinas 2026 three days later, garnering 239,000 likes and 7,400 shares, suggesting that these actors shared generative AI prompts or centralized asset databases.

By the numbers: These content mills command massive online following and viral engagement metrics.

• The page Eunoia has 1,100,000 followers, followed by “AY GRABE” with 723,000 and Kwentong Bubwit with 307,000.
• The dataset showed three pages with more than 500,000 documented followers during PressOne.PH’s period of monitoring.
• Their content strategy led to many posts going viral. A single Jan. 21, 2026 AI reel by Kwentong Bubwit gained 1,003,452 views, 68,612 likes, and 7,040 shares.
• Despite being operated by seemingly different pages, the early wave of baby videos had hidden links: every single “cute Duterte” video and fake AI-generated tribute art was tagged using keywords like “Duterte 2028,” “Duterte,” or green heart emojis.

Monetization: One page, Kwentong Bubwit, has successfully monetized AI propaganda by selling limited-edition pillows of the babified politicians and producing sponsored advertisement reels for a local baby diaper brand.

• Monetization.wtf, a website used to check for content that generates revenue for creators across platforms, confirmed that pages like Duterte News Info and Bagong Pilipinas were earning money through Facebook’s content monetization scheme, like ads on reels and in-stream ads.
• Facebook says on its website that eligible creators can earn money through its invite-only monetization program by publishing content on the platform, including AI-generated images.

The 2028 playbook: As the political landscape shifts, the network has actively pivoted to amplifying Sara Duterte’s 2028 presidential bid.

• Pages seemed to be conditioning the public by projecting the inevitability of another Duterte presidency. Kwentong Bubwit regularly flexed early survey numbers with hashtags like #PresidentSaraDuterte and #INDAYSARAFORPRESIDENT.
• In one post, an AI-generated Baby Sara lip-synced to a Taylor Swift song while washing clothes, with a caption asking, “Sino pa ang excited para sa 2028?” (Who else is excited for 2028?)

AI-powered influence: Experts warned that AI-generated political content had moved beyond mere entertainment to become a “natural progression” in regional influence operations, capable of systematically manufacturing alternate realities and reshaping the electorate’s perception of history.

• Dr. Krystian Chołaszczynski, head of the political science department at the University of Social and Media Culture in Toruń, Poland, said “babification” made controversial figures relatable. The strategy operated on two levels: humanizing strongmen through “soft” imagery and by revising political history through alternate realities.
• “Most people who are using social media probably don’t have the skills to recognize what is real,” Chołaszcyzynski said in an interview.
• Michel Andre del Rosario of the Center for Information Resilience and Integrity Studies (CIRIS) said this “softening” of iron-fisted personas—a tactic used in the successful “Gemoy” campaign in Indonesia—was a logical evolution of the digital strategies that served as a benchmark during the 2022 Philippine elections.

Regional impact: Del Rosario observed that the 2022 campaign set the tone for regional tactics, providing a blueprint that was later refined in Indonesia and later leveraged by Duterte-linked pages to turn the family’s legal crises into a “PR bonanza.”

• “These AI tools allow small operations to execute high-impact disinformation that previously required a team of 50 people,” said del Rosario, adding that these campaigns have effectively “prepared the ground” to condition potential voters even without official candidate involvement.
• Chotaszczynski warned that “manufactured adoration” risked turning voters into “believers” rather than informed followers, leaving “the good guys” to play catch-up.
• CIRIS’s Del Rosario told PressOne.PH: “Here in Southeast Asia, we’re composed of countries that, I would say, are relatively young democracies. We’re still in the wild, wild west of democratic maturity. If you look at the mature democracies in the western hemisphere, even they are grappling with the impacts of AI in the information space.”

The bottom line: By leveraging generative AI to flood feeds with adorable babies, fabricated foreign tributes, and monetized propaganda, coordinated networks are no longer just manipulating social media metrics—they are actively rewriting reality and conditioning voters years before the next ballot is cast.

With reports from Leigh San Diego (with the help of Zelle Corpuz, Yance Dionisio, Marybeth Realba, Azriel Dela Cruz, Angeline Domingo, Savannah Lantay, Arianne Jae Tadina)

Edited by Nathaniel R. Melican and Felipe F. Salvosa II

 

This report was made possible by an Internews project to build the capacity of news organizations in understanding disinformation and influence operations in the Philippines.