Ten days after his arrest, false reports surfaced on Chinese digital media platforms claiming that former President Rodrigo Duterte had collapsed into a coma while in detention at The Hague, where he faces trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity linked to his bloody anti-drug war.

VERA Files found signs of deliberately staged posts that spread disinformation from 13 Facebook accounts of alleged former policemen.

Faced with tough challenges even before the trial begins, the Duterte camp is working to win the former president's case in the streets rather than through the legal channels, which they have long been trying to besmirch through black propaganda and other forms of disinformation.