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MANILA — Former President Rodrigo Duterte's appearance before the International Criminal Court — the first former Asian leader to face it — for allegations of the crime against humanity of murder is unprecedented and unfamiliar to Filipinos, a disinformation researcher said, suggesting journalists and experts can help fill a gap that can be fertile ground for conspiracy theories and for information manipulation.

"The past week has been surreal to many Filipinos, with little to no precedent in our historical imagination," said Dr. Jonathan Corpus Ong, executive director of Sigla Research Center and a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst currently on sabbatical.

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The first hours of Duterte's arrest and eventual transfer to The Hague in the Netherlands prompted comparison to how the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and his family were flown out of the Philippines in 1986 — a comparison also made by Sen. Imee Marcos, the sitting President's sister who was on that flight decades ago.

But ordinary Filipinos have also been grappling to make sense of the "technical dimensions of a high-stakes trial taking place on the global stage," Ong told ABS-CBN News in an online exchange.

"Filipinos are having to learn complex rules of procedure while working through emotions of shock, surprise, pity, and even a sense of collective shame for one’s country," he said.

"It’s understandable then to fall for explainers, quote cards and decontextualized videos that might give a sense of comfort in the face of uncertainty," he said, referring to videos of massive protests in other countries presented as in support of Duterte as well as repurposed videos of the late former Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago talking about the ICC.

Ong said consuming and sharing this kind of content may "[give] comfort that a happy ending for Duterte and his supporters is inevitable."

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CLAIMS BY OFFICIAL SOURCES AND KNOWLEDGE INFLUENCERS

This has not been helped by the dominance of hyperpartisan pundits — Ong and other researchers who studied the 2022 elections call them knowledge influencers — who compete with traditional academics and experts for public trust.

In “Parallel Public Spheres: Influence Operations in the 2022 Philippine Elections”, a study published in 2022, Ong and his team write that these knowledge influencers use "erudite punditry and engaging educational content" for partisan ends.

Ong on Monday said that since Duterte's case at the ICC is unprecedented, "Filipinos should be wary not to take any so-called expert’s interpretation and speculation as gospel truth."

Apart from the legal aspects of the ICC case that Duterte and his supporters have raised before the Supreme Court of the Philippines and before the ICC itself, Filipinos have also had to make sense of contending and contentious narratives on social media. 

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Among those were one by lawyer and PDP Laban senatorial candidate Raul Lambino last Tuesday that the Supreme Court had issued a Temporary Restraining Order on Duterte's arrest and transfer as well as speculations — quickly debunked — that the former president  could not be found at the ICC.

"It’s understandable that we participate in theorizing, but it is a thin line separating healthy speculation with conspiracy thinking that leads to disinformation," Ong, who wrote in 2022 that partisanship is part of how democracies work but should be based on facts, said.

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SUPPOSED SUPPORT FROM TRUMP AND FROM FICTIONAL LAWYERS

Social media also saw the spread of quote cards of personalities supposedly expressing support for Duterte, including one from US President Donald Trump attributed to the Washington Post, Fox News and other mainstream US outlets.

Alongside those were supposed statements of support from fictional lawyers Elle Woods from the "Legally Blonde" franchise and Annalise Keating of the "How to Get Away With Murder" TV series.

"The fictional character memes are also familiar strategies of mobilizing support. Given how ridiculously satirical some are, like the Elle Woods meme, I wouldn’t be surprised if these memes were seeded by anti-Duterte groups hoping that his supporters would fall for these," Ong said of the quote cards, some of which have thousands of shares and reactions on Facebook.

To help counter the influence of these attempts at muddying the discourse on the alleged extrajudicial killings in the drug war, Ong suggested "[broadening] our media diet and [following] journalists and researchers who have done research on the drug war, spoken to victims and communities, and advanced human rights advocacy."

Duterte was brought to The Hague over allegations of extrajudicial killings in the drug war, although rights groups like Human Rights Watch have pointed out that accountability for the deaths extends to others, including those who implemented the operations.

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Authorities have acknowledged the deaths of more than 6,000 in anti-drug operations while human rights monitors estimate the number of deaths could have reached 30,000 or more.

The official narrative during the drug war that those killed by law enforcement had violently resisted arrest, a narrative that a Department of Justice review of a handful of cases in 2021 cast doubt on.

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Rights groups and Duterte critics have hailed the recent developments but acknowledge that, as Karapatan said last week, victims' families and their supporters still "face a long journey towards full justice and accountability."