Despite studies claiming his campaign benefited from disinformation in the 2022 national elections, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will launch his administration's anti-disinformation campaign next week, which will be integrated into the country's higher education curriculum.
Press Secretary Cheloy Garafil announced [1] that the government body will hold a ceremonial signing of the campaign's Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with partner state agencies and social media sites on Monday, August 14 at Hilton Manila, Pasay City.
Focusing on making "more discerning" media consumers in the country, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) will implement a Media and Information Literacy (MIL) project that will be integrated into a series of national community-based training and family-oriented programs.
"This is the administration's response to the disinformation and misinformation plaguing the country’s digital landscape, focusing on capacitating the youth to become more discerning consumers of media," said Garafil.
The anti-disinformation initiative will be partnered by several government agencies, including the Department of Education (DepEd), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), alongside social media giants such as Google, Meta, TikTok, and X.
The collaboration between the PCO and partner agencies will make avenues for a comprehensive execution plan crafted to target the identified root causes of disinformation in the country.
PCO Undersecretary Cherbett Karen Maralit noted [2] last March that a collaboration between PCO and public education sector can address the country's challenge of considering MIL as a core tertiary-education subject behind its integration into the basic education.
Meanwhile, in a solidarity speech last June at the 14th International Conference of Information Commissioners (ICIC) in Pasay City, Marcos Jr. asserted that "fake news has no place in the Philippine society" following the announcement of the project, which ought to be "digital, multimedia, and youth-oriented."
Independent fact-checking group Vera Files reported [3] that Marcos Jr. was the top beneficiary of disinformation through the "production of election-related posts" in the last presidential elections, including contents of "distorted facts" about his family's cases of ill-gotten wealth.
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Article: Chris Burnet Ramos
Graphics: Renzo Cabitlada
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