Philippines

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” killed thousands of people.

For years, Catholic priest Flaviano Villanueva has gathered evidence of alleged extrajudicial killings.

He exhumed victims’ bodies for forensic examination and protected a key witness who claims he worked as a contract killer for Duterte.

In March 2025, the priest’s persistence paid off when Duterte was arrested and extradited to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court.

101 East follows Father Villanueva’s fight for justice for the victims of Duterte’s brutal crackdown.

Manila, Philippines – When former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March, Sheerah Escuerdo spoke to a local television station, welcoming the politician’s detention on charges of murder linked to his war on drugs.

Escuerdo, who lost her 18-year-old brother, Ephraim, to Duterte’s war, clutched a portrait of her sibling during the interview with News 5 Everywhere as she demanded justice for his killing.

Days later, she was shocked to find an AI-generated video of her slain brother circulating on Facebook, in which he said he was alive and accused his sister of lying.

“I’m alive, not dead. Are they paying you to do this?” the computer-generated image of Ephraim said.

The video, posted online by a pro-Duterte influencer with 11,000 followers, immediately drew thousands of views on Facebook.

One of the comments read, “Fake drug war victims”.

It was Escudero and her brother’s image from her News 5 Everywhere interview that the influencer had used to falsify their family’s tragedy. The video has since been reposted countless times, spreading to other social media platforms and resulting in Duterte supporters hounding Escuerdo daily.

“I wake up to hundreds of notifications and hate messages,” she told Al Jazeera.

“The worst thing is reading comments of people who believe this is real!” she added.

The same kind of harassment has been levelled at other vocal drug war victims, especially those under the group Rise Up, who actively campaigned for the ICC’s intervention.

Duterte’s arrest in March came amid a bitter power struggle between the ex-leader and his former ally, the incumbent president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Their alliance collapsed last year due to disagreements over policy, including Marcos Jr’s courting of the United States. The president’s supporters are now leading an effort to impeach Duterte’s daughter, Sara, from her post as the country’s vice president.

As tensions have escalated, supporters of Duterte and Marcos Jr have stepped up digital smear campaigns, using disinformation. Apart from fake accounts and doctored images, the disinformation mix has noticeably included AI-generated content.

Both the Marcos Jr and Duterte clans have been known to deploy disinformation tactics. Marcos Jr won the election in 2022 following a disinformation campaign that sought to whitewash his father Ferdinand Marcos’s brutal rule during the 70s and 80s.

But fact-checkers and experts say the recent uptick in posts peddling false narratives can be attributed more to the Duterte camp.

Disinformation nation

Victims of the drug war, their families, supporters and even their lawyers say incessant online disinformation has targeted them.

In a statement, the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), which represents Rise Up, a group of drug war victims, said the “online hate” was being “directed at widows, mothers, and daughters of drug war victims, attempting to intimidate them into silence”.

Both NUPL and Rise Up have now formally requested the government to investigate the increasing online harassment.

The campaign by Duterte’s supporters aims to discredit the ICC, demonise their detractors and paint their family as persecuted victims leading to and after the May 2025 mid-term polls, according to Danilo Arao, mass media expert and convener of election watchdog Kontra-Daya.

“The Duterte camp aims to deodorize the image of both patriarch and daughter. They will resort to disinformation to get what they want, even if it means twisting certain data,” Arao told Al Jazeera.

He pointed to posts circulating online that the ICC consented to grant Duterte’s request for an interim release, which in reality was denied.

The surge in disinformation has caused worry among Filipinos.

A report released in June by Reuters Digital News found that a record number of Filipinos – nearly 7 out of 10 – were more concerned with disinformation than ever before.

In the same month, Duterte-allied senator, Ronald Dela Rosa, shared an AI-generated video on his official Facebook page. The video, which showed a young man criticising the “selective justice” targeting Sara Duterte, was posted on June 14, garnering at least 8.6 million views before it was taken down.

The vice president defended the video, saying there’s “no problem sharing an AI video supporting me as long as it’s not for profit”.

Arao, the mass media expert, countered, saying the politician is trying to normalise disinformation, and that she “badly needs media literacy”.

Tsek.ph, the Philippines’ pioneer fact-checking coalition, noted that fact checks on posts about Duterte’s ICC arrest over a six-week-period account for almost a quarter of the 127 news articles curated by the group.

The figure surpasses the two dozen pieces of news related to Sara Duterte’s impeachment.

On Sara Duterte’s deepfake defence, Tsek.ph coordinator Professor Rachel Khan told Al Jazeera that “for the educated, it reinforces their already tainted image of disregarding truth. But for followers, it could reinforce the dictum that ‘perception is truth.’”

In reality, the popularity of the Duterte family has waned significantly.

Opinion and approval surveys conducted in March indicate that at least 51 percent of the public want Rodrigo Duterte to be tried for his alleged crimes. Likewise, polls in June found that at least 66 percent of people want Sara Duterte to confront allegations of corruption against her through an impeachment process.

AI growth

The government of last year launched a task force to mitigate disinformation and the use of AI. However, spikes in disinformation were already noticeable in December as the Marcos-Duterte rivalry heated up.

Tsek.ph tracked the increasing use of AI in disinformation before the mid-term elections held in May this year. It found that from February to May, out of 35 unique altered claims, nearly a third “likely involved deepfake technology to impersonate public figures or distort reality”.

“This is a problem of human behaviour, not AI. It’s a disinformation influence operations problem, exacerbated by the unethical usage of AI tools,” Carljoe Javier, executive director of Data and AI Ethics PH, told Al Jazeera.

All mainstream political forces in the Philippines have, to some extent, deployed AI technologies to boost their agendas. The latest OpenAI Safety Report revealed that Comm&Sense, a Manila-based tech firm, used AI for a campaign using thousands of pro‑Marcos Jr and anti‑Duterte comments across Facebook and TikTok.

Besides generating content, the firm also used AI to analyse political trends and even draft public relations strategies.

The report said Comm&Sense manufactured TikTok channels to post identical videos with variant captions while handling shell accounts to post comments and boost engagement.

The use of AI to outline plans, not just create content, marks a shift away from the Marcos Jr administration employing troll armies as he did in his 2022 campaign.

“If you have the resources and the bully pulpit of the government, you can afford to keep on swatting the Dutertes and their partisans for whatever statements they have made against the Marcos government,” said Joel Ariate Jr, a researcher tracking political developments at the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center.

“If you put AI in the hands of an already good public relations or marketing team, the capacity for disinformation is amplified by so much. They can have one message and instantly generate 20 different versions of it,” explained Javier.

The Philippines has several pieces of legislation in congress concerning the responsible use of AI. For a healthy policy approach, Javier believes that technical and ethical experts would be crucial.

He said he hoped the country’s leaders can take important steps, but said he has doubts about their appetite for ethical AI legislation.

“Is there enough push for legislators to advance a policy given that they may be benefitting from the current state of political operations?” he asked.

China has agreed to sign a Southeast Asian treaty banning nuclear weapons, Malaysia’s and China’s foreign ministers confirmed, in a move that seeks to shield the area from rising global security tensions amid the threat of imminent United States tariffs.

The pledge from Beijing was welcomed as diplomats gathered for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers’ meeting, where US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also due to meet regional counterparts and Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

Malaysia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamad Hasan told reporters on Thursday that China had confirmed its willingness to sign the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ) treaty – an agreement in force since 1997 that restricts nuclear activity in the region to peaceful purposes such as energy generation.

“China made a commitment to ensure that they will sign the treaty without reservation,” Hasan said, adding that the formal signing will take place once all relevant documentation is completed.

ASEAN has long pushed for the world’s five recognised nuclear powers – China, the United States, Russia, France and the United Kingdom – to sign the pact and respect the region’s non-nuclear status, including within its exclusive economic zones and continental shelves.

Last week, Beijing signalled its readiness to support the treaty and lead by example among nuclear-armed states.

Rubio, who is on his first visit to Asia as secretary of state, arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday amid a cloud of uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy, which includes new levies on six ASEAN nations as well as key traditional allies Japan and South Korea.

The tariffs, set to take effect on August 1, include a 25 percent duty on Malaysia, 32 percent on Indonesia, 36 percent on Cambodia and Thailand, and 40 percent on Laos and Myanmar.

Japan and South Korea have each been hit with 25 percent tariffs, while Australia – another significant Asia Pacific ally – has reacted angrily to threats of a 200 percent duty on pharmaceutical exports to the US.

Vietnam, an ASEAN nation, along with the UK, are the only two countries to have signed separate trade deals with the US, whose administration had boasted they would have 90 deals in 90 days.

The US will place a lower-than-promised 20 percent tariff on many Vietnamese exports, Trump has said, cooling tensions with its 10th-biggest trading partner days before he could raise levies on most imports. Any transshipments from third countries through Vietnam will face a 40 percent levy, Trump said, announcing the trade deal on Wednesday. Vietnam would accept US products with a zero percent tariff, he added.

Reporting from Kuala Lumpur, Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride says Southeast Asian nations are finding themselves at the centre of intensifying diplomatic competition, as global powers look to strengthen their influence in the region.

“The ASEAN countries are facing some of the highest tariffs from the Trump administration,” McBride said. “They were also among the first to receive new letters announcing yet another delay in the imposition of these tariffs, now pushed to 1 August.”

The uncertainty has pushed ASEAN states to seek alternative trade partners, most notably China. “These tariffs have provided an impetus for all of these ASEAN nations to seek out closer trade links with other parts of the world,” McBride added.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has been in Kuala Lumpur for meetings with ASEAN counterparts, underscoring Beijing’s growing engagement.

Meanwhile, Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, has also been holding talks in Malaysia, advancing Moscow’s vision of a “multipolar world order” – a concept backed by China that challenges what they see as a Western-led global system dominated by the US.

“Lavrov might be shunned in other parts of the world,” McBride noted, “but he is here in Malaysia, meeting with ASEAN members and promoting this alternative global structure.”

At the same time, Rubio is aiming to counter that narrative and ease tensions. “Many ASEAN members are traditional allies of the United States,” McBride said. “But they are somewhat nervous about the tariffs and recent US foreign policy moves. Rubio is here to reassure them that all is well in trans-Pacific relations.”

As geopolitical rivalry intensifies, ASEAN finds itself courted from all directions, with the power to influence the future shape of international alliances.

US seeks to rebuild confidence in ASEAN

Rubio’s presence in Kuala Lumpur signals Washington, DC’s intention to revive its Asia Pacific focus following years of prioritising conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.

The last meeting between Rubio and Russia’s top diplomats took place in Saudi Arabia in February as part of the Trump administration’s effort to re-establish bilateral relations and help negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.

Analysts say Rubio faces a difficult task of rebuilding confidence with Southeast Asian countries unnerved by the US’s trade policies. Despite the economic fallout, he is expected to try and promote the US as a more dependable alternative to China in terms of both security and long-term investment.

According to a draft communique obtained by Reuters, ASEAN foreign ministers will express “concern over rising global trade tensions and growing uncertainties in the international economic landscape, particularly the unilateral actions relating to tariffs”.

Separately, a meeting involving top diplomats from Southeast Asia, China, Russia and the United States will condemn violence against civilians in war-torn Myanmar, according to a draft statement seen Thursday by AFP.

ASEAN has led diplomatic efforts to end Myanmar’s many-sided civil war sparked by a military coup in 2021.

The White House has sent letters to 20 different countries this week announcing new tariffs.

US President Donald Trump has issued a new round of tariff letters to six countries, including Algeria, Brunei, Iraq, Libya, Moldova and the Philippines.

The letters, which were sent on Wednesday, call for tariffs of 30 percent on Algeria and Iraq; 25 percent on Brunei, Libya and Moldova; 20 percent on the Philippines – the largest of the trading partners announced on Wednesday. The tariffs are expected to start on August 1.

Trump posted the letters on Truth Social after the expiration of a 90-day negotiating period that began with a baseline levy of 10 percent. Trump is giving countries more time to negotiate before his August 1 deadline, but he has insisted there will be no extensions for the countries that receive letters.

The Census Bureau reported that last year, the US ran a trade imbalance on goods of $1.4bn with Algeria, $5.9bn with Iraq, $900m  with Libya, $4.9bn with the Philippines, $111m with Brunei and $85m with Moldova.

The imbalance represents the difference between what the US exported to those countries and what it imported. None of the countries listed are major industrial rivals to the United States.

Taken together, the trade imbalances with those six countries are essentially a rounding error in a US economy with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $30 trillion.

Wednesday’s letters are the latest in a slate the Trump Administration sent to nations around the globe. On Monday, he threatened Japan and South Korea with 25 percent tariffs, stepping up pressure on the two historical US allies and a dozen other economies to reach trade deals with Washington.

Over the weekend, the Trump administration began sending letters to countries informing them that the US would begin to reimpose the tariffs it postponed in April. Trump’s erratic approach to tariffs is triggering widespread economic effects on the US and countries around the world.

In the US, the most recent jobs report showed little to no growth in sectors including trade and construction, industries largely impacted by tariffs. The US GDP contracted 0.5 percent in the first quarter of the year, according to data released by the US Department of Commerce’s report last month.

This comes amid a handful of looming trade negotiations across the globe that will impact the US economy and many of its key trade partners.

The Trump administration has only put forth two trade agreements thus far, which are with the United Kingdom and Vietnam.

US markets have stayed stable despite the new tariffs. As of 12:30pm Eastern Time (16:30 GMT), the Nasdaq is up 0.5 percent. The S&P 500 is about even with the market open, only up about 0.2 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up by 0.1 percent.

Divorce remains illegal for most people in the Philippines – making it the only country besides Vatican City where it’s banned. With no legal pathway out, activists say women are often forced to stay in abusive or unwanted marriages.

In this episode of Now You Know, we speak with Cindy Diaz. The mother of three has been separated from her abusive husband for over a decade and is fighting to make divorce legal. We also hear from legal expert Clara Padilla, who weighs in on whether that’s possible.

One chilling death sparked widespread panic, leaving villagers to wonder if a supernatural predator was lurking in the shadows.

At the same time, the CIA was locked in a brutal struggle against communist Huk rebels, deploying a mysterious operative named Edward Lansdale to lead covert operations. But how far did Lansdale go to crush the rebellion?

In this episode:
-Michael Pante, historian
-Allan Derain, folklorist

The warning from China’s embassy in the Philippines follows criticism from a top EU official about Beijing’s conduct.

China has told the European Union to stop “provoking trouble” in the South China Sea after EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas expressed concerns about Beijing’s coercive activities in the strategically important waterway.

“We urge the EU to genuinely respect China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea and to stop provoking trouble,” a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Manila said in a statement on Thursday.

China said the EU had no right to interfere in regional issues, and advised the Philippines that it should stop “fantasising about relying on external forces” to resolve disputes regarding the sovereignty of the South China Sea.

The warning from China’s embassy follows a meeting between Kallas and the Philippines’ foreign minister, Enrique Manalo, in Manila earlier this week, where they announced a new security and defence dialogue between the EU and the Philippines to counter threats like foreign interference, cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns.

The two sides also expressed concerns about China’s “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive measures” against Philippine vessels and aircraft carrying out lawful maritime operations in the South China Sea.

When asked by reporters about the EU’s red lines towards China in the South China Sea, Kallas said that the EU is committed to upholding peace and a rules-based order.

“We reject any unilateral changes to the status quo, including use of coercion,” Kallas said.

Half a dozen countries, including the Philippines, lay claim to different parts of the South China Sea, but Beijing claims sovereignty over almost all of it.

The conflicting claims extend into the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, leading to frequent altercations between China and its neighbours.