A poll watchdog group identified red-tagging as the top campaign violation ahead of the midterm elections.

As of 14 March, Vote Report PH, an alliance of professionals and organizations aiming for clean, honest, and fair elections, said it had received 94 reports of campaign violations.

Of these, 64 percent were cases of red-tagging, 25 percent were of illegal campaigning, four percent of vote buying, and three percent of illegal use of public resources.

Vote Report PH highlighted that some instances of red-tagging appeared to result from the use of deepfakes to spread disinformation.

A deepfake is an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that they never did.

Red-tagging often targets progressive senatorial and partylist candidates such as Senate hopeful and ACT-Teachers Rep. France Castro, Kabataan Partylist first nominee Renee Co, and the Bayan Muna Partylist group.

Castro earlier sought the help of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology to take down artificial intelligence-generated videos falsely linking her and her party-list group to the New People’s Army.

The Comelec assured Castro it is “very much willing to assist” her in taking down the malicious posts.

Comelec Resolution No. 1116 explicitly prohibits red-tagging, dubbing it an election offense that distorts the “public perception” and creates a “climate of fear that suppresses legitimate political discourse.”

Vote Report PH also noted that illegal campaigning is “most observed among candidates leading formal and informal surveys.”

Asked to comment, Comelec chairperson George Garcia said the poll body will look into the report and compare its findings with its records.

“We are one with them in the fight against discriminatory acts and utterances committed during the election period and we will hold violators of campaign rules responsible,” Garcia said.