Part Human, Part Machine: China’s Influence Meets Philippine Disinformation | Regine Cabato

Welcome to Countercheck. Regine Cabado is an investigative journalist who spent years reporting on disinformation and foreign influence campaigns in the Philippines. She's also been personally targeted by the Chinese Embassy in Manila for her work. Regine's original interview with Countercheck was reported as a wide-ranging discussion but for today we're going to focus on the big questions about how China's influence activities actually operate in the Philippines. Regine's first-hand experience being targeted by Chinese state actors and what she thinks Philippines journalists and citizens should watch for heading into the 2028 elections. Here is Regine Cabado. Let's start with some context. How would you describe the disinformation ecosystem, the trends in the current state of disinformation in the Philippines? First of all, I've been speaking and observing disinformation in the Philippines. Speaking about and observing disinformation in the Philippines for over five years now I would say it first came into the public consciousness in what many people regard to be the first social media election back in 2016. So we're coming into a decade of seeing this industry of online political influence. One of the things that makes it pressing is that we're seeing how there are payoffs coming from political players that have invested very early in this online infrastructure today, a decade later from when they first started. Nowadays, I tend to describe the information influence seen in the Philippines as a cyborg. It has become dominantly partly human, partly machinery type of operation. Back in the past, it was very clear that these influence ops were usually run by troll forms, usually run by bots. But nowadays, you have true believers, you have actual human hands that have human faces, like influencers, who have a very clear, potentially organic, sometimes motivation behind writing on this type of partisan influence. And that's kind of what makes it complicated and what makes the machinery very difficult to dismantle because it resonates very much with real humans' feelings. The other complication that has arisen in the Philippines in recent years, I would say, is what seems to be a budding collaboration between foreign influence and domestic influence. Now, the Philippines has a very active homegrown disinformation economy. It's something that's been observed since around 2018. There is a structure that academics have termed this information architecture, where PR strategists and consultants basically sell PR packages to political clients, sometimes corporate clients, which can include an influencer package of troll farms, so to speak, where they can forward certain campaigns. And because that is something that is homegrown to the Philippine PR industry, it is a shadow economy of an above-board industry. It's something that foreign actors have been able to take advantage of, because one of the biggest foreign actors that have been in the Philippine information space, lately, China, with whom the Philippines has a maritime dispute and the strained relations, has realized through the years, I would say, that its previous style of having information operations that are run directly out of China have not been hit with local Filipino audiences. Back in 2019, 2020, Facebook flagged and took down the network that was traced all the way to China. This was studied by graphical in a paper called Operation Naval Gazing. And if you look at the type of activity that was done then, one wouldn't say that it was very much of a hit or very appealing to Filipino audiences. Any trained eye would be able to tell a right of the bat that this was potentially an information op and the foreign influence one at that. Nowadays, in more recent years, there have been exposés, particularly for more authors and rappler of the Chinese Embassy commissioning a local marketing firm called Infinitas. And this particular operation is an example of how China foreign influence has evolved through the years from 2020 to 2025 to 2026, where we're seeing that when they commissioned Filipino workers or company in the Philippines to cater to Filipino audiences, they are able to more easily camouflage these accounts as subnative to the Philippines, and they could potentially, you know, fool a lot more people in the process. So these are some of the complicating factors about the current situation in the Philippines. - You've been personally targeted by the Chinese Embassy in Manila. What happened? - Yes, and I really wish that it would die down, but it seems like every time that people ask me about it, and you know, I answer these questions because I freely do want to speak about it, and I think we deserve to have an open discussion about the kind of wolf warrior diplomacy that the Embassy is engaging in. It seems like the Embassy always does want to have the last say itself, and so a new round of post-start. But this whole thing basically began in late February after I had produced a video for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism on the common China and that we see on Filipino social media. - And the article and the video, I would say, was very careful actually, not the name, the Chinese state as the source of these types of narratives. It was actually very, very careful to state that some of these narratives were coming from Filipino influencers, but the qualifier, they are narratives that are for the benefit of China. So I thought that it was quite clear in that regard. So I was not expecting the Chinese state throughout the way it did, and one thing that was interesting about the reaction was that the Embassy posted right before midnight in late February, which was a very unusual time for one can say supposedly professional diplomatic arm and the representation of a foreign state to be posting. And right on the dot within the next few hours this post that was basically the crying the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and accusing it of being a state propaganda tool of the US. - That's something along those lines. This post was shared extensively by Barthasan Pro-The-Thirta influencers from midnight through the morning, reaching a total following count of roughly maybe four million people. And we were able to monitor this in real time as it happened. And this, I would say, is quite unusual activity for foreign embassy, and it was something that we, that in a way kind of proved the extent of the arguments that were being posited in the article. When we came up with a graphic that basically mapped out how the embassy responded and the suspicious convergence of these partisan influencers around that post, then the embassy kept responding afterward. So it triggered a whole lot of support actually from the international watchdog community, as well as from local organizations. And I'm not sure if that's the reaction that the embassy wanted really. - To what extent is China's playbook in the Philippines unique versus a replication of tools and methods used in other countries? - From my conversations with people so far, there are lots of varying views. In other countries, actually, the embassies have already been this aggressive the beginning with. So for other countries, this type of wall of warrior diplomacy, so this speaks not particularly new. What is interesting, I would say, in the Philippine case, is that, and what makes it very complicated is that we still generally have to rely on things like document leaks with some lawyers to be able to really be able to draw a clear line between. - Inauthentic coordinated operations and political influence and the Chinese embassy or the Chinese state, and that's what happened in the infinitas operation, but there are also more complicated. the influence operations, I would say, that could have more of an organic hand. And that's the one that I've been observing for my master's thesis. I followed a bunch of influencers who had gone to Beijing sponsored training. And basically, they had come out of this training, producing a lot of pro-China propaganda, so to speak, and echoing a lot of Beijing stop-points. But you can't necessarily prove that there's money trail or that there is clear connivance because it could also be as these influencers argue that they are going for, if they're just broadcasting their real opinions on things. But there are a few red flags, I would say, that includes the mercenary tactics of these influencers. They are very known for spreading this information, for gaslighting, for harassment. All these things that would be red flags, especially if they are supposed to be representatives of what should be a soft power program between two countries. If it were any other country, for example, that would have an influencer diplomacy type of engagement, the way that these bloggers or these influencers act online would be frowned upon. But that's not the case in the case of these pro-China Filipino waters. So those are some of the kind of like complicating, as I would say. What do you think the embassy is trying to achieve by attacking you and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, PCIJ? Okay. So I would say that one of the aspects of the ad game is basically just to seed the narrative, just to get their side of the narrative out there because then, you know, it would basically work in terms of the algorithm and the SEO, particularly for their followers, basically planting a seed of doubt in institutions like the media, like the PCIJ, institutions that actually have a reputable track record of press freedom and of investigation. It is making people doubt them. So it's part of this crediting campaign, while also pushing forward China's narrative that these are institutions that are backed by the United States, therefore they're not trustworthy, they are western bent, so on and so forth. I would say that the goal for any influence operation is not necessarily to change people's minds overnight. It would already have achieved the goal by just putting that narrative out there so that two its followers, especially to people who are open-minded about, you know, this kind of argument, and people who are already leaning that way perhaps because of partisan politics, they will be able to reinforce that narrative later on because then it just becomes like a feedback loop in their followers' algorithms. So the other aspect that I would say, so we talked about this crediting, the other aspect I would say is also basically to send a message to people in the industry that there are consequences for speaking out in the way that I have or for investigating or tapping topics in the way that I have. So it's meant to be form of discouragement really for people to not look into China and for us to kind of throw the line, which is why I feel like even though I would much rather be working on new investigations, I feel the need to defend my work and to talk about it when people ask me to and to show people that I'm actually doing quite okay because I think that we need to preserve this space for being able to have an honest, the goodness discussion about pro-China propaganda, China's actions and about the dynamic between China and the Philippines. Because what they're trying to do is basically they're trying to discourage journalists from reporting critically about them. Can you talk a little about the role of Filipino influences in this context? Okay. Well, there are quite a diverse set of partisan influencers in the Philippines, particularly for the pro-The-Thirta side. And what researchers have been observing is that there tends to be an overlap between pro-The-Thirta influencers and pro-China influencers. That is to say, they barter in the same narratives, in the same network. And this is something that independent journalists and newsrooms, as well as organizations like internews and aid data, so what I wanted to do is the kind of test this out basically. So there are some of these influencers who work, for example, on YouTube. And Phil Star, for example, was able to observe around six bloggers who have been pictured with the former president of the Thirta, tend to have very fear-mongering narratives when they talk about the West Philippine Sea in their video content. In my particular case, I wanted to look at textual analysis of Facebook influencers. So I took a look at the influencers who have admitted basically to attending pro-Beijing sponsored content training. And I picked, I think around three or four, of the people who had the most following on Facebook. And I scanned their content for six months leading up to the mid-term elections last year. So up until June 2025. And I looked specifically at content that had keywords like West Philippine Sea, South China Sea, China, Defense, Military, Eastern, anything that had to do with security. And there were a bunch of common narratives that came out. One of these common narratives was the demonization of the United States. So it was basically painting the Philippines as a vassal state, as a puppet for the US, and for the US as generally manipulating the Philippine foreign and defense policy. Which anyone who has covered these circles, who has spoken to people in the security sector, know that we are way past the colonial and Cold War era kind of mentality. I think that there are some very important discussions to be had with our leadership with the United States. There are maybe some post-colonial issues that we can talk about for sure. For example, you know, how situation like the Jennifer Loudon murder could have taken place or, you know, things like that. But the way that these influencers talk about the US and the Philippines in particular, is as if Philippine officials have absolutely no agency over our own claim in the West Philippine Sea. So that's one narrative that they're forwarding. The other, I would say, is also kind of double standard. So while they hate on the US, say, accuse the US of certain things, they never accuse China of the same. Which is what differentiates them, I think, from, you know, for example, leftist circles, which I would say are, you can see more sense of a more organic, student, sometimes sentiment. So that's fine. But with these vloggers in particular, they will always find ways to defend Chinese behavior. So that's what I found interesting. One particular post that I recalled was something that went along the lines of, you know, we should, we should totally dismiss this fear-mongering about China, so on and so forth. Because China can never be expansionist, because they already have so much land. That was the kind of logic that these vloggers kind of operate with. But at the same time, while, while painting China is benevolent, they also fear monger. So there's another double standard where they're kind of like, if China goes to war with us, we will lose, and it will be our fault, and it will be the US's fault, and we can never stand up against China. And then they also say in the same vein, China will never do that. What role do journalists and the media play in the dynamics you have described? I mean, don't journalists in the media more broadly contribute to some of those vulnerabilities? The media is not perfect. The industry is quite flawed, and I would also be remiss if I were to say it. that everyone in the mainstream media industry is clean, you know, corruption in the industry has always been a problem since time immemorial, but there's also a lot of vulnerabilities in the industry, whether that's financially, economically, or maybe vulnerabilities just in terms of resource manpower and knowledge or skills in terms of being able to identify these kinds of operations. There has been a research done by journalists, Mari Desvito and Camila Lemia, where they looked into the vulnerability of local newspapers, for example, when they tend to work with the Chinese state media very closely, because of how vulnerable they are financially, that they end up having to get content, basically, or have enter content sharing agreements, and that helps keep these papers afloat. That's not to say that these are necessarily resulting in propaganda like operations, or that they're necessarily resulting in bad things, but it is an area of vulnerability, and that's something that basically comes with the failing business models of journalism, which is a global problem. And then you also have journalists who also engage actually with China, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, I would say, because, you know, states are free to run software programs, and, you know, take scholars, take people on exchanges, things like that, which is why I'm always clear to clarify when I come on guestings and podcasts and stuff like that, but it's not necessarily participation in these programs, and in all of themselves, that's the problem. It is rather the things that people say when they come out of these programs. That's what we have to keep an eye out for. The Philippines, in particular, also is very emotionally charged, is when it comes to the social political, civic life, and this is something that's aided by algorithms. So, you know, the mainstream media would sometimes, I think, whether or not this is intentional, or if this is just a practice that people have gotten used to over the years, sometimes amplify or sensationalize certain statements that might not necessarily essentially be helping forward through or narrative. So, one thing I would say and criticize is the loose use of what in the Philippine media we call quote cards, where basically someone's a newsmaker's face and a quote from them is rendered into a graphic. It's a format that very easily goes viral, but sometimes the media will, for the intense and purposes sometimes, of just informing people that this person said a certain thing, they'll sometimes amplify a claim by a newsmaker that's not necessarily true, or has no basis necessarily in reality, and it's something that, I think, actually works in favor of the life, or the propaganda sometimes. Stepping back out for a moment, what is the Philippines doing well to confront foreign disinformation and marine influence, and where is their room for improvement? One of the things that I would say, and I guess this might be a personal bias as a journalist, one of the things that I would say that the Philippines is doing well is the transparency initiative. I would say that in recent years, the security sector and the foreign affairs department have really been able to restore decent professional working relationship with the Philippine press. A way that is actually, I think, unique in the region. I don't think that other media industries in Southeast Asia necessarily have the same working relationship that we do with the security and with foreign affairs sectors. I would say that it's not all smooth sailing necessarily. Anybody who has been covering the beat would know that people argue all the time over, for example, like embargo, whether, when is it strategic to release some things on and so for it, some journalists I know would sometimes be frustrated when the government would give an embargo, but then beat the journalists to breaking the story. But for me, like all these discussions are absolutely fair game to have, and I would be rather having these types of discussions with people who might have a professional source journalist relationship with, then be talking about whether or not something should run at all. And that type of problem was what we had under the previous administration. There are former presidents, which are very good to do that. I would have to interview people in the security sector who could not go on the record at all for fear of retribution because of a gag order over not talking about issues related to China and the West Philippine Sea. And so we really got to see how that constrained people in the security sector. So I would say that the transparency initiative is while it's widely credited to, you know, the openness of the current president, Bon Bon Marcos, it is really actually also the work of career people who are in the sectors in the diplomatic and the security sectors that have been pushing for this kind of open relationship with the press. And so that's one thing. I think that the Philippine scot going for it, things that it could do in terms of improvement. I think in some ways the intelligence gathering works, but also maybe in some ways like it takes a while for these things to kick in. And like, for example, like the case of Alice Guo, Mayor in the Philippians who had turned out to be a Chinese national and who has been accused of being a spy for China. It's a wild, wack story. I think it also goes to show that at the local level, there are a lot of, I would say, things to be desired when it comes to the capacity of local government agencies, local units, for example, of the Commission on Elections, just general awareness when it comes to what state operations look like. And I would say that, and this is a common consensus or analysis that I hear very often when you speak to people in the security sector, that there are lots of vulnerabilities in localities that are economically vulnerable. For example, that don't have resources where, you know, a foreign state like China can just jump in and basically offer incentives to the local government official. And so like local elite capture is another like area that the government should be looking at as well. How about legal tools? Are they rigorous enough to deal with the threat landscape you've described? The Philippians is absolutely overdue for an update. It's foreign and preference law, especially in the cyber age, I would say that's a general consensus among people in the information, integrity circles and insecurity circles. I think the tricky thing will be fashioning or crafting a law that is able to capture the nuances of the Philippine situation and make sure that it's not going to be abused by, you know, once, for example, there's a change in power. So one of my fears, I would say, for a foreign and territorial, as a journalist, is if the wording of the law is vague enough that it would penalize, for example, journalists who are receiving grants for independent investigations, which are already underfunded enough, which are editorially independent, for example, because this is a problem that our colleagues in the rest of Southeast Asia face, where the laws and foreign interference and on fake news, so on and so forth are very restrictive, but they're restrictive in favor of, you know, an authoritarian reading. So that's one of the risks that that posits. And, you know, China would love, as we can see from the statements from the embassy, to be able to paint the funding that independent newsrooms get, which is already scarce, by the way, as, you know, funding that comes from a foreign state, or as funding that is stated, but That's not necessarily the case. I work a lot with different newsrooms that take these grants and I can see how people conceptualize their investigations from they just need money to do that. And there is no say that any foreign state has over these investigations. So that's one risk, I would say. But definitely there is a need for a law that would be able to capture and regulate really what goes on in the Philippines to be able to look more closely into cases like Alice Wolf, for example, to look into cases of elite capture, like for example, where just hypothetically Philippine officials or businessmen might be shing-- yes, might be receiving hypothetically dark money, right? And then there are also cases where you see collaboration between the local disinformation economy and foreign agents. And what exactly would that mean for what exactly is the cost of that for Philippine public life, right? Where you have basically this planted or seeded sentiment coming from a foreign state that's made or disguised as organic. And these are powered by Filipino businesses. And the money, the dark money that goes into lining the pockets of these operators, basically, nobody knows how to track them. And yet they have very real consequences for Filipino, public, and political life. So these are some of the things that the laws should probably look into. Let's turn to the next generation of journalists. What skills and tools do they need to better support the fight against disinformation and foreign influence? I would say more training when it comes to data gathering, open source intelligence, being able to track these networks. We have so many amazing journalists with independent newsrooms who are constantly upskitting and who are able to do the analysis hands down. But the tools, basically, to do this analysis constantly, cost money. And so funding is definitely something that people in the media sector still need. The other thing is definitely digital security. So one of the things that I would say are a potential turn off. Two people who are aspiring journalists in the Philippines is the harassment that potentially comes with the profession. But it gives people a lot of peace of mind if you have the infrastructure in place that can protect you from that harassment. And there are ways to be able to build that in your newsrooms through your networks. So that was why when I was working with the Foreign Press, back at the Washington Post, I was observing and learning a lot from how the post ran its security. And what tools it used, the kind of treatment that our security guy had with journalists in higher-risk areas. And I wrote a guide during my fellowship in Oxford for how some of those tools could be transposed for Philippine local newsrooms. And a lot of these are very doable, very affordable interventions. For example, assigning a team in social media to be able to monitor harassment against your colleagues, releasing statements of support when the harassment campaign against the specific employee goes out of hand. And these are some things that some newsrooms already do, with which others don't, and being able to have a kind of protocol is in itself really, I would say, important and local newsrooms need that. So there are resources, funding, and digital security. Looking ahead to the 2020 elections, what should people watch for? The use of AI is one. In the 2025 mid-term, generally observers were expecting it to be a lot worse in terms of how AI would be used for the mass production of deep fakes and basically a mass enabling of this information campaigns. I would say that in 2028, we can probably expect more of that. We can expect it to ripen, really, especially with how we're seeing not just the use of deep fakes, but also the use of generative AI for the mass production of bot-like comments and astroturfing of comment sections. So one thing that we observed is there tends to be, especially in mainstream news, media breaking news, a flooding of comment sections from sometimes genuine looking accounts, but which follow a certain script, and which all come in at a certain time. So these are all AI and able the astroturfing and the flooding. There will probably be more methods like that coming into 2028. And then, of course, there are your political developments local to the Philippines. You have the upcoming impeachment trial of Vice-President Sara DeTerta. We have the power struggle that's ongoing at the Senate, which is also full of its own complications. We have the potential arrests of senators who are implicated in the flood corruption scandal, which is another corruption scandal altogether. And senators who also face corruption scandals that have nothing to do with the flood control, but which also might have merit on their own. And all of these things will basically converge in the run-up to 2028. So there's a lot of pieces on the board, I would say, and it'll be interesting to observe. And that's also why Philippine politics is never boring.