Shortly after his election, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. released a video announcing that he would continue his vlogging activities as a form of “information dissemination.” Currently, the president’s YouTube channel has 2.72 million subscribers and over 1,000 videos to date.

Marcos Jr. owes his political success to a coordinated social media campaign, through which he was able to rehabilitate his family’s image, cast doubt on historical events, and push misinformation about his political opponents. In the end, his strategic leveraging of social media contributed to his landslide win in the 2022 national elections.

Playing the game

Questions of morality aside, politics is a game of numbers and influence which the Marcos-Duterte tandem—the UniTeam—has no trouble playing. They expertly manipulated the power of social media in their favor and were not met with equal resistance in the same channels that they operate on. Any pushback from the opposition failed to penetrate the UniTeam’s information ecosystem because of their refusal to play the game.

The opposition’s disregard for these new media tactics in the 2022 elections exhibited a distinct brand of academic elitism and moral antagonism, drawing a wedge between them and potential voters.

In its disdain for such tactics used by the UniTeam campaign, the opposition projected an air of moral supremacy at the cost of electoral outcomes. The framing of the opposition as “morally righteous” then cut both ways. It established the opposition’s legitimacy as inheritors of the People Power legacy, but it dismissed those outside its bubble as morally inferior. Their absolute stance—while necessary to combat disinformation—left no room for the curious or doubtful. In this view, one is either correct or an outright apologist. There is no room for discussion or debate. The “others” must simply listen.

However, if the opposition seeks to remain relevant, they must drop the pretense of moral superiority. Doing so would unlock new tools to promote its agenda while opening the table for more productive discussions. In the meantime, the opposition is left playing on the UniTeam’s terms.

Leveling the field

Left unchecked, the Marcos camp would continue to peddle false narratives of socio-economic development during the brutal regime of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Although there are ongoing efforts to combat such disinformation, they are not effective for many reasons—in particular, their means and message.

This fruitlessness was not simply an inability to adopt new media for campaigns but an outright rejection to play the UniTeam’s social media game. The opposition did not see the value in short videos or trendy dances. They did not exploit the potency of memes nor did they truly capitalize on the momentum of the youth. By having control of the narrative yanked out of their grasp, the opposition in 2022 missed the chance to transform into a truly democratic movement.

Here, the UniTeam did well—in terms of public relations—by staying silent on political issues. Keeping silent ensured that no words could be twisted and left much more to the imagination—giving them control of the narrative. Silence then allowed the public to fill in the gaps: cementing the UniTeam’s branding as decent, polite, and “unified.”

Vloggers supporting Marcos Jr. and Duterte are able to use these gaps in official communication and fill them in with whatever narrative they desire, true or not. Communicators are then left scrambling to counter these untruths. In this sense, facts are employed as mere counterarguments instead of standing alone as truth for people to discover and accept on their own terms. This sends a hostile message to those who believe in Marcos’ stories: “You are wrong,” or, worse, “You are a liar.”

This approach only antagonizes those that the opposition seeks to sway. By no means should the opposition stray from the facts, but perhaps efforts are better placed in communicating the facts as they are—no more, no less. When facts are not stated as truths in themselves but as a counter to something else, room is left for doubt to thrive. Instead of painstakingly plucking the seeds of mistrust planted by the UniTeam alliance, those who seek to defeat them should similarly plant seeds of doubt in stories that are widely accepted but unsubstantiated. This doubt should, in time, find its way to the light of truth.

The way forward for the opposition, or what’s left of it, is unclear. What is known, however, is that its old methods have failed. If it refuses to change, maybe it is time for the opposition of old to step aside and let something new rise in its place.