NBI probes China’s election interference

MANILA, Philippines — The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has launched a probe on allegations of China’s interference in the Philippines’ midterm elections.

In a Viber message to The STAR, NBI Director Jaime Santiago said the agency’s Intelligence Division, headed by assistant director Noel Bocaling, has been tasked to lead the investigation.

The launch of a probe by the NBI stemmed from the National Security Council (NSC) asking the Chinese embassy to explain payments made to a Makati-based firm allegedly to manage “dedicated keyboard warriors.”

At a briefing yesterday, NSC assistant director general Jonathan Malaya questioned the Chinese embassy’s apparent involvement in the internal affairs of the Philippines.

He also raised concern over Chinese state-sponsored information operations aimed at influencing the political discourse in the Philippines.

The issue gained further attention after Sen. Francis Tolentino disclosed that the Chinese embassy had hired the Makati-based firm InfinitUs Marketing Solutions Inc. to manage crisis and campaign issues.

Tolentino revealed that the firm, which received P930,000 from the Chinese embassy, had initiated online campaigns criticizing the Philippine government and promoting Chinese policies.

China has denied the allegations, asserting it has no interest in influencing Philippine elections. It accused the Philippines of fabricating issues and promoting anti-China sentiment.

Malaya said it is now up to the NBI to build a case against embassy officials involved in the alleged interference.

Meanwhile, in a televised debate last Sunday organized by TV5, torchbearers of mainstream media have urged the government to promote self-regulation amid the flurry of fake news online, as social media influencers defended themselves in the debate that pitted two seemingly antithetical platforms of information delivery.

At the outset of the “Manindigan” debate aired Sunday night, the traditionalists and influencers agreed there should be no confrontation between mainstream and social media.

“It is clear that journalists and content creators should not fight each other because the real question here is who tells the truth – sourced from deep research, attention to detail and conversations with different sectors, especially those that are underprivileged,” Danilo Arao, an associate professor of the Department of Journalism at the University of the Philippines, said in Filipino.

Each camp, however, aired its grievances on who really is telling the truth.

Vlogger Orion Perez Dumdum invoked the long-stalled Charter change in claiming that mainstream media portray adversarial issues in a negative light.

“Constitutional reform has been portrayed negatively for the longest time, so I had no choice but to release the truth on social media,” Dumdum, whose Facebook handle Orion Perez D has gained over 70,000 Facebook followers, stressed.

Another vlogger, Bryon Cristobal, known as Banat By, has over 200,000 followers on Facebook and is allied with former president Rodrigo Duterte.

For Vergel Santos, trustee at the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, influencers “indoctrinated” their audiences by provoking their political opinions.

“The culture of today’s partisans is either fanatical or cultish. They would receive news that soothes them,” Santos, a journalist for 40 years who edited various broadsheets, asserted.

Duterte’s ascent to power in 2016 unleashed a wave of disinformation that, in 2018, Facebook executive Katie Harbath branded the Philippines as “patient zero” in the fake news pandemic. — EJ Macababbad