Pro-China attacks on PCIJ expose PHL vulnerabilities to FIMI

By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan

Comments and posts from pro-China accounts on Facebook targeting the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) have exposed the vulnerabilities in the country’s infrastructure against Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI).

Since last year, the PCIJ has been discussing FIMI, largely in the context of pro-China propaganda over social media, promoting its claims over the West Philippine Sea, usually initiated by accounts with large followings and followed by other accounts with diverse clout over platforms.

Earlier this year, the center followed it up with a video explainer via Reels by the report’s author, Regine Cabato, echoing the report, emphasizing the examples, and providing clearer context.

Like clockwork, pro-Beijing narratives flooded the comments section of the PCIJ’s Reel, but some comments still came in as late as July 24, 2026.

The October 29, 2025 social media infographic that accompanied the original report also gained traction because of that.

The Chinese Embassy to the Philippines also weighed in on the issue, accusing the PCIJ of being pro-United States, based on its past grants from the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy.

Data culled by civil society organization Democracy.net.ph and analyzed by the PCIJ itself, indicated that pro-China Facebook accounts, were the first to echo the Chinese Embassy’s statement.

These accounts were also closely linked to propaganda in favor of former president Rodrigo Duterte, his family, and their allies.

Democracy.net.ph analyzed the first 12 hours of comments posted on the Chinese Embassy’s February 25 statement, and found that engagements significantly came from accounts that they have classified as having “High Inauthenticity” or those which have a high chance of being fake.

The highest activity from these accounts came from within the first three hours of the posting, or between 11:00 PM on February 25, and 1:00 AM on February 26, with some activity from accounts that were categorized as “Likely Authentic”, or those with a lower chance of being accounts of real persons, between 6:00 AM and 7:00 AM on February 26.

 

But the Chinese Embassy’s retorts and attacks against the PCIJ’s credibility did not stop there, with several other statements reiterating the center’s ties to the NED on February 26, and March 3, 11, and 19, and with it, the same or a similar number of engagements.

 

 

For each of the posts, Democracy.net.ph was also able to map out a network indicating a commonality of accounts amplifying the Chinese Embassy’s statements, which, like the first statement, were also those that parroted pro-Duterte statements.

FIMI vulnerability

The postings have sparked greater discussion on the topic of the Philippines’ vulnerability to FIMI.

Social impact technology firm CirroLytix and the University of Asia and the Pacific Law School convened a hybrid forum last June 29, where Cabato and Carlos Nazareno of Democracy.net.ph discussed its findings in relation to the Chinese Embassy barrage.

As previously reported by Daily Guardian, Frances Claire Tayco, Dr. Ivan Pulanco, and Dominic Vincent Ligot of CirroLytix culled the findings and inputs from media, civil society, the academe, and other key stakeholders into a policy paper, “Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference in the Philippines: A Rights-Aware Governance Framework for Democratic Resilience in an AI-Mediated Information Environment”.

Analyzing mainly the points from the forum and previously published reports on FIMI, with focus on the Chinese Embassy’s targeting of the PCIJ earlier this year, the paper summarized four major problems in the country’s governance infrastructure against FIMI:

• Detection and documentation depended heavily on civil society initiative, rather than on a standing national response mechanism;
• Existing legal tools did not provide a clear category for coordinated foreign-linked manipulation of the information environment;
• Potential financial relationships and enabling infrastructures could not be systematically examined through an integrated intelligence pathway;
• Journalists, researchers, and investigators faced harassment and security risks without a dedicated protection architecture.

From these problems, as well as the other inputs, the policy paper came up with six core findings:

1. FIMI is behavioral, not merely content-based;
2. The Philippines is vulnerable because foreign influence can exploit preexisting domestic systems;
3. Technology is both a risk multiplier and a resilience capability;
4. Existing Philippine responses are fragmented;
5. Legal reform must not become a censorship instrument; and
6. Civil society capacity is a national resilience asset.

“The case also illustrates the need for evidentiary discipline. Open-source investigation can identify timing patterns, account irregularities, narrative coordination, and suspicious amplification. However, it may not by itself establish every financial relationship, platform-side data point, or individual intent required for formal accountability,” CirroLytix’s policy paper said about the Philippine evidence on FIMI.

“A credible governance response must therefore combine behavioral detection, clearer legal thresholds, platform transparency, financial intelligence, and resilience mechanisms, while preserving constitutional safeguards and due process,” they added.

The policy paper recommended a four-layered, multi-sectoral governance framework that moves beyond content policing and addresses legal, financial, social, and technological concerns:

1. Detection and Attribution, which encourages evidence-building from identified coordinated manipulation;
2. Legal Architecture, defining actionable conduct and assigning proportionate accountability;
3. Financial Intelligence, exposing and disrupting economic infrastructures which enable the proliferation of FIMI; and
4. Capacity and Resilience, which calls for a capacitation and reinforcement of structures and systems against FIMI.

Domestic appearance

While FIMI in the Philippines deals more with foreign agents causing harm to the populace through amplification of mis- and disinformation, the concept is not entirely alien to domestic politics.

Just between last year and this year, Daily Guardian was able to follow the comment trail on two pressing issues in Ilonggo politics: flood control and the bolantero squabbles.

In Daily Guardian’s March 26 report, we observed comments on our flood control stories and how their language and account structures indicate vocal support and bias toward one political camp, mostly in defense of Iloilo City lone district Rep. Julienne Baronda’s involvement in flood control projects in the city.

Daily Guardian’s May 9 report showed how supporters of the Iloilo City government and its dominant administration also weaponized the comments sections, covering not only Daily Guardian’s content, but also stretching to Panay News, Aksyon Radyo Iloilo, RMN Iloilo, and the city government’s own content.