Nosy Tarsee has a story that sounds more like a detective movie. There’s this “news network,” they say, with such a pretty face. A dozen regional pages, millions of followers, uniform branding — it looks like a legitimate newsroom. But dig beneath the surface and it turns out to be a PR machine, not a news outlet.

Based on the report, the entire network is managed by a political consulting firm based in BGC, Taguig. On its website is the tagline: “We make dead brands famous again.” But its real specialty is “online reputation management” for politicians and businesses that want to “change audience behavior.” Translation: change the public’s mind — for the price of millions of pesos.

And it’s not just in the Philippines where they’ve been active. They reportedly have ties to a tech firm flagged in 2018 over allegations of foreign meddling in a gubernatorial race in Guam. It seems the game they play is international-class.

Who’s behind it? A name has surfaced as CEO, who reportedly admitted in an interview that one of the pages in question is their client. Nothing hidden, as they say.

Now, how do they run it? There’s a “fact-checking” page (how ugly the irony, right?) that itself funds the ads across the entire network.

Dig deeper and it turns out there are many other names as well — individuals and organizations — that also appear as funders. They’re the same ones paying for pages that look as though they have nothing to do with one another. There are even pages that seem completely random. One was reportedly a “secret confession” page before it became a “blog.” All connected to the same operation.

And what fills their posts? Based on the analysis, about 25 percent of their content consists of PR material for well-known officials — a former House Speaker and a sitting Cabinet secretary. Positive coverage for them, negative coverage for their rivals. If you compare the list of those being “protected” with those being “dragged,” you quickly see which side they’re on. It’s always flattering for one camp and damaging for the other.

While real newsrooms across the country are shrinking — cutting staff and closing down — this kind of operation is multiplying, riding on the name of “news” to hide its real agenda. No disclosure, no transparency — only the appearance of journalism.

Tarsee simply asks: If a network spends hundreds of millions of pesos on political ads but doesn’t even publish real news, is it still a news network — or a political operative?