Online trolls attacking conservation area Masungi Georeserve Foundation Inc. (MGFI) for its environmental efforts are allegedly linked to a PR specialist connected to Sen. Imee Marcos, according to a BBC investigation.

An eight-minute documentary by BBC journalist Marc Silva revealed that the smear campaign proliferated on Facebook, with troll-like accounts discrediting the Rizal-based Georeserve’s environmental advocacy through misleading comments and shared posts. These posts, according to the report, were purchased by PR specialist Ben Pablo, who specializes in reputation management.

Pablo has reportedly bought advertisements on behalf of other pages in the past months. The BBC journalist discovered that some of these ads promoted Sen. Imee Marcos.

Silva attempted to contact Pablo, but received no response. Furthermore, Pablo’s social media accounts were deleted during the probe.

Patterned activities

Manila-based journalist Regine Cabato, of The Washington Post, told the BBC that these activities are consistent with her investigations on troll farming.

“A lot of the [comments] have a certain script [which is] decided by a strategist, in a room that has a call center set-up, where you have a team who runs multiple accounts on Facebook and other social media sites,” she said.

Silva also noted that he found similarities in the sentence structure, subject-matter, and choice of words across these comments. Aside from criticizing Masungi Georeserve in the comments, the BBC journalist found that the users also defended the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) against its critics.

This troll farming activity extends to defending other government agencies. For instance, the solons who have raised concerns against the alleged budget mismanagement of the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were attacked by these online pests.

DENR-Masungi deal

MGFI founder Ben Dumaliang signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the DENR in 2017, allowing the foundation to protect the nature reserve, which covers 2,700 hectares of land.

However, in 2023, the environment undersecretaries recommended the cancellation of the MOA, citing a violation of the 1987 Constitution. According to a document submitted by the Department of Justice, this is against Section 2, Article XII of the 1987 Constitution, which limits such arrangements to a period not exceeding 25 years.

Growing concern

Dumaliang’s daughter Ann, who currently manages the georeserve with her sister Billie, expressed concern over the disinformation campaign.

“It could be clouding sometimes to be in the eye of the storm, to have to deal with multiple campaigns all at the same time, to have all of this disinformation on top of all the enforcement activities we have to do on the ground,” she said.

What is more concerning is that the proliferation of troll farms may become more apparent in the upcoming senatorial elections.

“It has become a norm, I’m afraid. This is something that we’ve seen laid out during elections, against certain political targets, and sometimes it’s something that we’ve seen deployed against private individuals,” Cabato said.