Online rumours of civil war in Philippines tied to China's covert agenda

A recent surge of online rumours about civil war in the Philippines may be linked to China's attempts to manipulate public opinion amid the South China Sea conflict, reflecting Beijing's broader disinformation tactics and strategic goals.

Analysts link such efforts to a broader cognitive warfare strategy by China, leveraging disinformation through social media and traditional channels in an attempt to sway public sentiment and destabilise the Philippines' political landscape.

"What we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg," Sherwin Ona, a visiting fellow at the Institute for National Defence and Security Research think tank in Taiwan, told This Week in Asia. "We must brace ourselves for more of this."

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Last week, The Philippine Star reported on coordinated efforts by anonymous Chinese social media accounts that shared a November statement by Pantaleon Alvarez, a representative from Davao del Norte, calling for the secession of Mindanao's southern islands from the rest of the Philippines.

Alvarez, a known ally of former Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte, served as speaker of the House of Representatives under the ex-president.

Within days, more than 60 social media accounts posted about Mindanao's "independence campaign", fuelling speculation of conflict and blaming President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr's "pro-United States" policy for the rift, the Philippine Star reported.

Online personalities linked to the Duterte camp amplified the secession posts, claiming Marcos' administration was escalating the issue. Pro-Duterte commentator Rigoberto Tiglao, for example, wrote that officials' "knee-jerk reactions" signalled to the world "that there is already an ongoing armed secession movement" - after National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano and Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro had said that any secession movement would be "met by the government with resolute force".

Duterte, who is in the midst of a vitriolic public feud with Marcos, in February called for the independence of his home island of Mindanao.

The suspected disinformation campaign aligned with Beijing's "grey-zone" strategy of using covert tactics like cognitive warfare to achieve strategic objectives without direct military action, Ona said.

"We can also see that disinformation is being pushed through traditional channels, such as state media, astroturfing techniques using pro-Beijing social media sites for amplification, and trolls," he told This Week in Asia.

Ona claimed similar cognitive warfare tactics had been deployed in Taiwan and Hong Kong, citing disinformation spread ahead of Taiwan's election in January, including unfounded claims of corruption and dictatorship against eventual winner William Lai Ching-te and fake news about tainted pork and eggs imported from the US.

A US State Department report last year accused China of spending billions of dollars to expand global disinformation campaigns that it said constrain free speech and undermine information reliability.

"The tactic is to generally push a cyber-enabled disinformation campaign combined with offensive cyber operations, such as hacking of public data and cyberespionage," Ona said, noting that this strategy often works in tandem with other malign tactics, like sowing division, co-opting local leaders, and controlling critical infrastructure.

He said these efforts aimed to advance Beijing's strategic vision of national rejuvenation and hegemony over the Indo-Pacific by 2049, as part of its "Chinese dream".

"Its excessive claims in the South China Sea, its Belt and Road Initiative, among others, are part of this goal. It also plays the victim card by saying that China has endured centuries of humiliation perpetrated by foreign powers," Ona said, arguing that Beijing extended its victimhood narrative to territorial claims in the West Philippine Sea - Manila's term for its exclusive economic zone within the larger disputed waterway.

"The narrative is usually the opposite of what they do in the West Philippine Sea. Normally, Beijing resorts to blame-shifting, such as blaming the [Philippines' coastguard] for the water cannon and collision incidents," he said.

In April, Marcos unveiled a six-year plan to strengthen the Philippines' cybersecurity efforts following a spate of cyberattacks from suspected Chinese actors.

The month before, an anonymous hacker breached the Philippine coastguard's Facebook page, flooding it with malicious content for a week before the government regained control.

Marcos' website, the Department of Information and Communications Technology's email server, and the National Coast Watch Centre also fell prey to hackers in January. The information department said the hackers were traced by investigators and were suspected of using the services of state-owned telecoms company China Unicom.

Chinese embassy officials in April refuted Philippine military reports that Beijing had been recruiting Filipino military personnel as consultants and planting operatives in "sleeper cells" across the country.

Don McLain Gill, a geopolitical analyst and lecturer at De La Salle University's Department of International Studies in Manlia, noted a rise in information operations targeting the Marcos administration's policies to secure Philippine sovereignty, coinciding with Manila's efforts to bolster security ties and economic cooperation with the US.

Gill said Beijing wanted to undermine the Philippines-US alliance and reshape the political landscape ahead of elections by sowing societal discord.

While Marcos has two years left in post until the Philippines' next presidential race, midterm polls are set take place in 2025 for Senate and local government seats.

Gill said Beijing's disinformation campaign on social media platforms like YouTube aimed to catalyse domestic unrest in the Philippines by spreading fabricated videos and posts "with the general aim of catalysing domestic clamour" and convincing Filipinos that Manila was provoking conflict in the South China Sea.

"Such information manipulation also aims to harness Filipinos' negative perceptions of the US and its alliance network in the Indo-Pacific. More importantly, Beijing's media mouthpieces, like the Global Times and the China Daily, conveniently parrot such narratives. One can safely assume that there is a strong link with Beijing's overarching interests," Gill said.

He called information operations a common "sharp power" tactic, referring to a country's ability to disrupt governance and social cohesion in a target state through disinformation and propaganda.

Gill said democracies were more vulnerable to sharp power due to their open information flows, unlike authoritarian states that regulate media, and urged Manila to proactively counter the spread of malicious online disinformation.

"This is no time to be complacent. Manila must continue to consolidate a whole-of-government and society approach to call out and push back such malicious information. This will require a robust public-private partnership," he said.

"Constant effort is needed from Manila to sustain its ability to transparently communicate its people-centric and agency-driven approach in the West Philippine Sea."

China is not the only country that has been accused of conducting disinformation campaigns that have impacted the Philippines.

Reuters recently reported that the Pentagon attempted to discredit the quality of the Sinovac vaccine, which was the first Covid-19 jab that was available in the Philippines.

Responding to a query about the report, the US Defence Department did not deny it but said in a statement on Sunday that it conducts "a wide range of operations, including operations in the information environment (OIE), to counter adversary malign influence".

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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