Make it make sense: Duterte numbers and the blame BBM train

The recent Pulse Asia survey that shows the high approval ratings of the Duterte father and daughter should be reason for alarm for those of us who are: (1) on the side of democracy and freedom, justice and accountability, and (2) honest enough to admit we live in real fear of having a Duterte Version 2.0 (ala Trump Version 2.0) in 2028.

The old man Duterte himself has said, as have their propagandists, that Sara is worse than her father. I tend to believe them all. After all, if there’s anything we now know for sure, while she might not have the same kind of “charm” that her father did, she has built a powerful woman vibe, the kind that gets away with saying she imagined beheading the President; or that she will have him, his wife, and his cousin conditionally assassinated; the kind that gets away with saying she wants a bloodbath. The kind that went on stage at various 2025 local campaign sorties to publicly take down, with photos and videos, those she considered as “enemy”.

That she has approval numbers like this despite an impeachment she deserves, as does her father jailed and on trial for crimes against humanity and the thousands killed in the drug war, should be reason for alarm—and urgent, focused, strategic action—if we care at all about our freedoms.

The numbers don’t lie

Regardless of whether you believe in Pulse Asia or Social Weather Station surveys, these firms have existed in our socio-political history as a way to capture public opinion at any given point in time. It does not posit the truth, as it does a truth for a specific moment. These surveys only make sense if we understand its methodology, and the painstaking care taken to get these data; it only functions as it should when we are able to contextualize it in the particular milieu within which these were done.

The latter, to me, has been important especially as I tend to see these survey results as tied to how the propaganda war is going.

The old man Duterte’s trust ratings in the Pulse Asia survey done from May 6 to 9 2025, showing that 63% of Filipino trust him, makes absolute sense to me given that context. It even makes sense relative to the SWS Survey from February 15 to 19 2025 where 51% of Filipinos agreed that Duterte should be held accountable for the drug war-related killings. It makes sense relative to new-kid-on-the-block WR Numero’s March 31 to April 7 2025 survey that showed that 61% of Filipinos believed it important that Duterte’s co-perpetrators on the crimes committed in the name of the war on drugs also be arrested and face the ICC, a question which to me is already premised on the belief that Duterte’s arrest by the ICC is valid.

And all of this makes sense relative to the same May 6 to 9 2025 Pulse Asia survey that says 58% of Filipinos disagree with Duterte’s arrest by the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague.

Making it make sense

With due respect to the ways in which these surveys are contextualized by our political scientists and malestream pundits, I view this from the lens of social media content, primarily on Tiktok—even as surveys have yet to show this to be an important enough space to take note of.

But hear me out. What if, instead of simply seeing the evolution of survey results as a by-product of the Duterte arrest and the 2025 electoral campaign, what if instead of simply assessing it based on our algorithms, we assess it based on what we do not see? What if we analyze it based on the kind of content that permeates what is now a specifically pro-Duterte algorithm on Tiktok?

Yes, it is easy to dismiss it—after all, what is there is what might be familiar to all of us who watched the arrest unfold: Kitty screaming at the policemen surrounding them, Duterte lecturing the police about possible outcomes, telling Honeylet it is impossible that he will be brought to the Hague, and finally Duterte facing the ICC looking weak and exhausted.

But this is only what’s on the surface—what makes it to mainstream media pages and what is discussed by male-stream pundits and elite campaign strategists. In truth, between the Duterte arrest in March, across the 2025 campaign, and through to the present, a content bucket that has constantly been filled is that one that speaks of Duterte as the Pinoy every man, the Juan dela Cruz, who became President. This is further dispersed across smaller content buckets, each one filled deliberately and strategically, and then mass dropped on Tiktok accounts that grow almost by the week.

There is content devoted to celebrating Duterte as father, in photos with his children, from Kitty to Pulong, across their growing up years to their political careers, with fatherly soundbites about his children. There is content devoted to Duterte jokes, politically incorrect as these are, often misogynistic, too—the time he called his nurse up to the stage to show everyone how pretty she looked, the time he objectified an LGU official as he acknowledged her presence at an event, the time he bantered with Doris Bigornia. There is content from old interviews with SMNI, seemingly long before he became President and long before Quiboloy gained national-global infamy, where he talks about running Davao and how he would run the Philippines, even as he constantly says he is uninterested in the presidency.

There is content of Duterte as strongman—not as scary dictator, but as the one who kept Filipinos safe for six years, a man who saved us from addicts, hold-uppers, thieves, street harassment. There is content of Duterte as strongman who owes no one anything, and as such could name nation’s enemies on television, calling out oligarchs, the militant left, the elitist liberals. There is Duterte as anti-US strongman—the one who called out American imperialism, fought with Obama, cursed at the Pope, refused to make an enemy of China.

All these types of content are framed fully and completely and consistently as proof of why Duterte was the best president ever, the father nation continues to need, his leadership what is yearned for. In this context, jailed and all, with crimes against humanity hanging over his head, and generally removed from the public eye, Duterte continues to gain the trust of his public, and the surveys simply capture that.

We are all content

 The Duterte content discussed above is but one of many other types that are being developed and created and shared at scale for Tiktok. It appears on this algorithm alongside thousands of content from Hague updates to his children’s public outings, to Duterte vloggers spewing opinion daily, to massive AI-created content of the Dutertes as babies or as animated versions of themselves, to original songs written and performed, music videos made, dramatized scripts generated.

The sheer number of Duterte content that has been created, generated, and shared on this algorithm across the past four months, explains Duterte’s trust ratings. It reveals how the opinion of the public might have changed with regards Duterte accountability and the ICC arrest, as it also proves the existence of a propaganda machine that is now even more well-oiled and better funded.

That none of us on the freedom and democracy side—across the left, progressive, militant, liberal, academic, civil society—have been able to even make a dent on this is a measure of us.

Because none of us, not mainstream media, not malestream pundits basking in and bragging about their many online followers, have focused fully and completely, with no hesitation or fear, on reminding the public about the violence of Duterte, the kind of lives we lived for six years under his regime, the horrible, unkind, anti-people policies he implemented. No one has kept on the Duterte case and insisted that it be seen as a by-product of that violent six-year reign, one that ignored rights and justice, one that none of us deserved. With no one focusing on this—because hey, it’s easier, less scary maybe? to throw toxic masculinity in the direction of BBM and call him “duwag” or “dinaga”; because it is easier to simply blame BBM for everything—then the Dutertes win.

It reminds of the six years under Duterte, when we were the losers in a propaganda war that was institutionalized, happening at scale on Facebook, and consistently followed through by a Malacañang comms team intent on keeping their approval ratings as high as possible. Now, they are not in power, and yet they seem to be, if we are basing it simply on this propaganda war.

Is there a way through this? The answer is yes.

First, let’s not operate as if we can still ignore the content that that the Duterte side is generating and sharing—all indications point to the sense that it is affecting public opinion and the general tenor of our discursive landscape. We risk our democracy by dismissing it. Second, let’s stop imagining that how we have operated all this time in terms of comms strategies, advocacies, raising our fists, using our platforms, talking to agreeable audiences, and dismissing anyone else as trolls or stupid, is enough. This generally means we are still only preaching to the choir, not the larger public that wins (and loses) elections for us.

Third and finally, let’s acknowledge that despite all our apprehensions about this BBM leadership, and despite the historical sins and violence of the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda to nation, the past three years have been better than having the violent, unjust, fascist leadership of Duterte.

This is not to say we shouldn’t be critical of BBM; it is to say that we need to be more thoughtful and circumspect about how we do it, with a clear sense of how all that we say and do is content that can feed the Duterte side, the more critical of BBM the better, the less contextualized in the mess Duterte left behind, the better. It is to say that maybe instead of seeing this as a choice between Duterte and Marcos, we see it as a choice between another Duterte in 2028, and democracy, freedom, human rights and justice.

We only have three years to win the war.

The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.