THE 2025 Philippine general election is scheduled for May 12, 2025, marking the country’s midterm polls. Nearly 70 million registered voters are expected to participate in this nationwide event, which will fill a total of 18,280 positions across 14 different posts, from the Senate down to municipal councilors.
Voters will elect 12 senators, who will serve six-year terms until June 30, 2031, as well as 254 district representatives and 63 party-list representatives for the House of Representatives.
This election is pivotal for the Philippines, as it will determine the legislative direction and local governance for the next several years. The outcome will shape national policies, influence the balance of power between administration and opposition, and affect the implementation of reforms at both national and local levels. The 2025 election is also seen as a barometer for public sentiment ahead of the 2028 presidential race, making their impact far-reaching.
The election is not only important for Philippines but also for its neighboring countries, especially China. The current government has been very vocal about Chinese attacks in the South China Sea and the territorial disputes and to counter that China has tried different method to destabilize the Philippines current government, may it be attacks on nearby islands, Navy movements in disputed areas or attacks in the cyberspace.
A similar interference has been observed before the 2025 general election in the Philippines, where we have come across Chinese FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation & Interface), which started from the social media targeting not only the local but also the Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs. These attacks which started on social media got a boost from Philippine-based Chinese media houses, Chinese Communist Party mainstream media, CCP sponsored influencers and SMNI news which is run by former President Rodrigo Duterte’s close aide and a wanted FBI criminal.
The trend on social media started on March 11 and peaked on March 16. We followed Twitter and Instagram in particular and noted coordinated support for Duterte poured on social media after his arrest. We analyzed the data on seven different hashtags, starting with #ProtectDuterte on March 11 (the day of his arrest), each day brought a new wave: #WeStandForPRRD on March 13, #BringHimHome on March 15, #BringPRRDHome and #GodSaveThePhilippines on March 16, and finally, #BringDuterteBackHome on March 17. The most jarring was #MarcosTraitor, which trended on March 16, but only on X, signaling a shift from defense to blame within the nationalist circles. Overall, 2,491 tweets done by 580 unique users and 1,498 Instagram posts done by 934 unique users were analyzed between March 11 and 19.
We saw multiple bot behavior from these accounts, some were only retweeting posts, some were only replying and a few with high number of followers (only 25 accounts with more than 5K followers) actually posting tweets to get engagement.
We analyzed the top 20 posts with the most engagement and we found a closed knitted network of 714 accounts which retweeted multiple of these posts.
Many of the accounts out of the 714 accounts shows a bot behavior of very high tweet frequency, i.e., no. of posts created by the users per day and it went as high as 382 posts per day, which indicates an automated post creation behavior.
When we analyzed these accounts, we found that almost all the accounts involved in creating and most of the accounts involved in sharing pro-Duterte posts had a history of posting pro-Chinese contents.
Apart from coordinated efforts for FIMI on social media, some of the pseudo media houses like Philippines Dragon Media and SMNI news were also posting content for Duterte- promoting him, criticizing his arrest and to gather sympathy for him.
On hashtags #菲律宾 #杜特尔特, we got 85 posts on Twitter, out of which 61 was done by Philippines Dragon Media or PDM and all in support of Duterte.
PDM website is registered in the name of Demry Cheng who is also the president of PDM. PDM aspire to become “a righteous and credible Chinese online media that the Chinese community in the Philippines can rely on at anytime.”
Also, we found a telegram channel of PDM which posts only on weekdays and that too in working hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Beijing time), unlike normal media houses which does a 24/7 coverage getting most viewership on the weekends.
Another such media house which became Duterte’s megaphone, did 2200 posts in favor of Duterte between January and May 4, 2025.
When we looked into SMNI news, we found that the founder, Apollo C. Quiboloy, is also the honorary chairman for SSMC, which is the parent company of SMNInews.
Apollo Quiboloy is a close friend of Duterte and is a wanted by the FBI under charges of Conspiracy to Engage in Sex Trafficking by Force, Fraud and Coercion, and Sex Trafficking of Children; Sex Trafficking by Force, Fraud, and Coercion; Conspiracy; Bulk Cash Smuggling.
The efforts to drive a pro-Duterte narrative that we saw on social media and the Philippine-based firms with Chinese links or criminal background were controlled and backed by the narrative coming from the CCP’s media mouthpieces —China Daily, China Xinhua News, China News, Global Times, CGTN and People’s Daily. We analyzed content from these media houses, which are covered in detail in our detailed report.
These media houses did 127 stories about the Philippines in 2025 out of which 50 mentioned Duterte, compared to total of 470 articles from 2025 till date. The increase in the number of articles was to create sympathy for Duterte or promote him in the upcoming election. We analyzed the stance of these 127 articles towards the Philippines and also the stance of 50 articles mentioning Duterte.
Out of 127 articles, only three were pro-Philippines and the topics were about the Philippines claiming its first ever Winter Asian gold medal and Chinese Hybrid rice varieties that are thriving in the Philippines, enhancing food security.
For the 50 articles on Duterte none of them (zero articles) posted anything negative or critical about Duterte. CCP media houses can write one or two positive articles for the Philippines once in a while but nothing against Duterte comes out of their pen.
There also some attempts to sway the OFWs for which protests were organized targeting countries with high OFW population. They were successful in organizing the campaign initially but it dried out in just a few days. Countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which host a major chunk of this population — 20% and 13.6% respectively — saw little to no public demonstrations because of the restrictions from the local government, which didn’t allow political protests.
This disparity raises a critical question: if millions of OFWs are supposedly outraged, where is the real-world mobilization? The answer points toward a manufactured storm — amplified online, inflated by bot networks, and detached from the reality on the ground. The numbers don’t lie, but the narrative being pushed certainly tries to.
Conclusion
The Chinese FIMI in the Philippine election and the open support for Duterte from CCP can be clearly viewed by analyzing the different social media platforms, digital print media and other social networking platforms. X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram didn’t just mirror China’s support for Duterte but they became platforms for manufactured chaos, blurring the line between public support and artificial narratives. The rise of bots and influencers spreading state-sanctioned messages showcased a digital manipulation machine, where repetition of a message outstripped its truth.
A sympathetic narrative towards Duterte was manufactured by China and they tried to fabricate fake support across the world, especially targeting nations with high OFW populations, for which they not only used social media influencers and bot accounts, but their own media houses went full throttle in support of Duterte.
Apart from Chinese support there was support from CCP-sponsored media outlets based in the Philippines and few of the already convicted friends of Duterte.
The goal? To weaponize public opinion and create sympathy for Duterte, using the volume of fake support to drown out real criticism. While the political spectacle continues to dominate, the real question will be for how long they can keep pushing the illusion and can maintain this facade before it finally unravels.
Read the full report here: https://medium.com/@thinkfi.net/fimi-in-the-philippines-election-2025-the-chinese-interference-part-1-e590e53fd1f7
ThinkFi editors: Rohit Sharma, director and co-founder, and Nikhil Parashar, operations head.
ThinkFi is a tech firm based in India that develops state of the art tools to gather and analyze data from open sources to detect misinformation, propaganda and disinformation in cyberspace.
Website: https://thinkfi.net
